Democrats’ strategy to keep former President Donald Trump out of office remains in play ahead of a report to be released by the Jan. 6 committee before Republicans take over the House next month.
Originally published at WND News Center. Used with permission.
Outside of fairly extreme rhetoric from Democrats, President Trump has never been accused of “insurrection,” much less convicted.
Nevertheless, Democrats are intent on characterizing his reaction to the anomalous 2020 election results and his concerns that the election was stolen – as well as his response to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, as the actions of an “insurrectionist.”
Which, they say, means he never can hold any public office again. Ever.
Breitbart reports 41 House Democrats filed a bill that would bar Trump, and they claim for their effort support from Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
“Donald Trump very clearly engaged in an insurrection on January 6, 2021 with the intention of overturning the lawful and fair results of the 2020 election. You don’t get to lead a government you tried to destroy,” wrote Rep. David Cicilline, a Democrat from Rhode Island, in a press release.
Joining Cicilline were several dozen others, including “radicals” Reps. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., Ted Lieu, D-Calif., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.
The section says, “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President… who, having previously taken an oath… shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
The report suggested a disqualification such as Democrats are demanding requires “evidence that Trump committed ‘insurrection or rebellion.’ Thus far, Democrats have failed to produce qualifying evidence, though the Justice Department is reportedly investigating Trump’s January 6 actions as related to a criminal probe in an alleged effort to question the 2020 election result.”
The Daily Caller News Foundation explained that those claims have been made against a long list of GOP members who didn’t act as Democrats wanted during and after the riot.
It’s been unsuccessful, except for a single case in New Mexico, where a local judge barred a county commissioner from office for “insurrectionary conduct” during that riot.
The report said, “Otero County Commissioner and Cowboys for Trump founder Couy Griffin was caught on video illegally breaching Capitol security barriers and entering restricted grounds that day, saying he would wait to enter an enclosed staircase until the mob got ‘this door broke down,’ according to District Court Judge Francis Mathew’s ruling.”
The report pointed out “No other public official has been barred from serving for this reason in over 100 years, according to The New York Times.
WND also reported on a Harvard study that said those protesters “motivated by loyalty to President Trump” actually “were not attempting to carry out an insurrection.”
Mainstream media and Democrats repeatedly have insisted that it was an insurrection, and that President Trump was its leader. But they have to argue that to support their claim he should be disqualified from holding office.
The Harvard study was based on court documents from 417 of the more than 800 defendants prosecuted for the riot, the Harvard Crimson said in a report spotlighted by Just the News.
“The folks with QAnon T-shirts, and signs, and flags were so prominently displayed in much of the visual imagery that came out of the Capitol attack,” said Kaylee Fagan, one of the authors of the study.
“So we expected to see more QAnon-related concepts come through in the documents.”
The study showed fewer than 8% said they wanted to start a civil war or armed insurrection.