Could a 'treason clause' kick Trump off the ballot?
The News Agents - USA
Global
4.3 • 719 Ratings
🗓️ 5 September 2023
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The 14th Amendment is not something anyone has discussed much since the 1800s.
But right now it's the talk of the town.
It includes a post-civil war clause that bars anyone from holding public office if they've engaged in an insurrection or rebellion.
Right now, there are lawyers, academics and die-hard constitutionalists who are working out if there's a legal channel to remove Trump's name from any electoral ballot on the grounds he tried to overturn democracy on January 6th 2020. We speak to a Watergate special prosecutor about what could happen. And we look at the Republican move to launch an impeachment enquiry into Joe Biden. Do they have evidence of wrong doing?
Editor: Gabriel Radus
Social Editor: Georgia Foxwell
Planning Producer: Alex Barnett
Video Producer: Will Gibson-Smith
The News Agents is a Global Player Original and a Persephonica Production.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents USA podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.0 | This is a global player original podcast. As has been reported widely, Donald Trump seems |
| 0:15.8 | unstoppable to be the next Republican candidate for the President of the United States. |
| 0:22.3 | Except there is one legal avenue now being seriously considered that could stop him in his tracks, |
| 0:31.5 | and that is in the U.S. Constitution. |
| 0:34.8 | It is the 14th Amendment, Section 3. No person shall be a senator or representative |
| 0:40.6 | in Congress or elector of President and Vice President or hold any office, civil or military |
| 0:46.9 | under the United States, or any state, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against |
| 0:52.7 | the same or give an aid or comfort to the |
| 0:55.8 | enemies thereof. |
| 0:57.6 | This amendment includes a post-Civil War disqualification clause that bars anyone from holding |
| 1:05.4 | public office if they've engaged in, you guessed it, insurrection or rebellion. |
| 1:11.7 | It is almost unthinkable that this would be applied. |
| 1:16.7 | The Constitution itself doesn't spell out how to enforce this ban. |
| 1:20.4 | It's only been applied twice since the 1800s. |
| 1:23.5 | But right now, all you have to do is look at what happened in this century, on January |
| 1:30.6 | 6th, just two years ago, to see how Donald Trump could face a legal argument that bans him as an |
| 1:41.3 | insurrectionist. |
| 1:42.1 | And what is new is that conservative, conservative lawyers |
| 1:46.5 | who backed him in 2016 are among those behind the move |
| 1:51.2 | to have Donald Trump disqualified before the election even happens. |
| 1:56.6 | Welcome to Newsagents USA. |
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