As with the three-hour argument in Trump v. Anderson, a disconcertingly precious little of the two-hour argument today was even devoted to the specific and only question presented for decision.
The Court and the parties discussed everything but the specific question presented.
Mar 29 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
The Nation is witnessing the determined delegitimization of both its Federal and State judiciaries and the systematic dismantling of its system of justice and Rule of Law by a single man – the former President of the United States.
In the months ahead, the former president can only be expected to ramp up his unprecedented efforts to delegitimize the courts of the United States, the nation’s state courts, and America’s system of justice,
Mar 14 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Professor Laurence Tribe @tribelaw and I have written this essay on the Supreme Court's decision in Anderson v. Trump, which @TheAtlantic has just posted.
"Whether born of a steeled determination not to disqualify the presumptive Republican nominee from the presidency, or of a debilitating fear of even deciding whether the Constitution disqualifies the presumptive Republican nominee
Mar 4 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
My thoughts about the Supreme Court’s decision today, with CNN’s Jake Tapper just now.
The ruling is astonishing and unprecedented, not for its decision of the exceedingly narrow — and only — question presented
(though, significantly, four of the Justices agreed only with the “result” of that decision, and not with its reasoning)
Feb 21 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Alexander Hamilton wrote to George Washington in 1792. “When a man unprincipled in private life[,] desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper . . . is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity . . .
It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may ‘ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.’”
Feb 17 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Yale Law Professor Akhil Amar (with Andrew Lipka) completes his analysis of the oral argument in Trump v. Anderson in this second podcast, the highlights of which are that:
Indeed, the Fourteenth Amendment does restrict the states, but not by preventing them from enforcing the Amendment’s disqualifications for insurrection against the Constitution of the United States.
Feb 12 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
As if serving today’s Supreme Court as its law clerk, and dissecting the arguments he heard from counsel and questions asked by the Court about whether Section 3 is self-executing, Yale Law Professor Akhil Amar makes the compelling case for “reconsideration” of Trump v. Anderson.
I will say up front what Akhil Amar would never say: Even the Supreme Court could be forgiven for not understanding the exceedingly complicated constitutional issues presented in this historic case as well as does he.
Feb 8 • 8 tweets • 1 min read
The former president is testing America’s commitment to American Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law.
The former president engaged in an insurrection or rebellion against the Constitution by attempting to remain in power beyond his four-year term after the American People lawfully elected Joe Biden President of the United States.
Feb 5 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Were I they, I would not have made the revealing, fatuous, and politically and constitutionally cynical, concluding argument that the former president and his lawyers made to the Supreme Court in their Reply Brief today.
I would consider this argument tantamount to an acknowledgment that the former president and his lawyers have all but concluded that their arguments have become so weakened by the briefing of respondents and their supporting amici
Feb 4 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
"To decline to enforce Section Three in [these] circumstances may be the most anti-democratic choice of all." @WilliamBaude @MStokesPaulsen.
"Section Three's disqualification from office of oath-breaking former officers who subsequently engaged in insurrection against the U.S. Constitution by attempting to overthrow or displace lawful government under the Constitution,
Feb 3 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
These two brilliant and courageous men, conservative constitutional scholars William Baude and Michael Paulsen, have already earned their place in American constitutional and political history.
They will now assume their rightful place in that history, with a short series of essays themed “Fighting the Meaning of Section Three," addressing the “many objections and arguments raised against [their] interpretation of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment that actually
Jan 30 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Thank you, Professor Laurence H. Tribe @tribelaw. There is no one from whom I would have rather wanted to hear these words. I, too, am proud of my colleagues for joining this brief. Unlike others, they have honorably refused to cower before Politics and the Constitution.
As with many tragedies — fiction and non- — the former president wrote the story of his own disqualification. On January 6, 2021, he engaged in an insurrection or rebellion against the Constitution of the United States,
Jan 28 • 18 tweets • 3 min read
The brilliant Roger Parloff of @Lawfare may well have blown Trump v. Anderson wide open. @rparloff
lawfaremedia.org/article/what-j…
The two professors who have most championed the argument that the president is not an “officer of the United States” are Josh Blackman of South Texas College of Law and Seth Tillman of Maynooth University. @JoshMBlackman @STCL_Houston @SethBTillman.
Jan 27 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
The Anderson Respondents filed their "Brief on the Merits" in the Supreme Court of the United States today. There is simply no answer to their claim that the former president is disqualified from the “Office of President” by Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment:
“Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that “[n]o person shall . . . hold any office,” state or federal, if they have “engaged in insurrection” against the Constitution after previously swearing an oath to support the Constitution."
Jan 26 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Courage and truth on display. The insistence upon truth above all else and the unyielding courage of the Federal Judiciary.
The Honorable Royce C. Lamberth, distinguished Senior Judge of the United States Federal District Court in the District of Columbia:
“I have been dismayed to see distortions and outright falsehoods seep into the public consciousness. I have been shocked to watch some public figures try to rewrite history, claiming rioters behaved ‘in an orderly fashion’ like ordinary tourists,
Jan 25 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I cannot imagine the Supreme Court not asking for the views of the United States on the fundamental and historic constitutional question of whether the former president is disqualified from the United States presidency by Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Court would invite justified criticism and suspicion if it did not.
Jan 24 • 13 tweets • 2 min read
Mr. Parloff @rparloff has penned another very important amicus “brief” for the Supreme Court about the obviously (to all but the determined few) different meanings of the constitutional phrase “officers of the United States” in the Disqualification Clause and Appointments Clause.
That the phrase has the exact same meaning in these two different clauses of the Constitution, which were written 79 years apart from each other and whose purposes are vastly different, has always been the most simplistic and superficial argument of constitutional interpretation
Jan 22 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Two of the nation's foremost constitutional experts on presidential elections, friends of mine @LarryLessig and @Matt_Seligman, have this noteworthy and provocative essay in the pages of today's @nytopinion, nytimes.com/2024/01/22/opi…
in which they identify a lawful way that the tempted could repeat in 2024 what they attempted but failed to accomplish in 2020 -- the election of a President of the United States contrary to the will and the vote of the American People.
Jan 19 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
As “the very stones cry out,” the former president’s Republican Party and Republican allies stand stone silent — still.
open.substack.com/pub/thebulwark…
And as long as he is being handsomely rewarded for doing so by his Party and political allies, it can be expected the former president will continue to contemptuously mock America’s Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law, as he campaigns for the presidency
Jan 4 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
@gtconway3d, for all of us who are grappling with the question whether the Framers of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment intended the phrase “officer of the United States” to have the identical meaning as that same phrase in the Appointments Clause in Article II,
it is important to recognize that, while almost identical, the two phrases in these two vastly different constitutional provisions actually are not identical. And the difference between them is of surpassing constitutional significance.
Jan 2 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Thank you, @rickhasen for posting this superb guest essay by Richard Bernstein, one of the finest lawyers in the country. Rich was lead counsel on the amicus brief that a number of distinguished officials who served in five prior Republican Administrations filed last week
in the District of Columbia Circuit. In that brief, we argued against "absolute immunity" from criminal prosecution for the former president's violation of the Constitution's Executive Vesting Clause in Article II, Section 1, Clause 1,
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