‘The Presidential oath, which the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment surely knew, requires the President to swear to ‘preserve, protect and defend’ the Constitution — not to ‘support’ the Constitution,’ read a filing from the former president’s attorneys
  • brown567@sh.itjust.works
    2041·
    1 year ago

    “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

    To be fair, “support” isn’t the exact word used, but “preserve, protect, and defend” is pretty unequivocal

    • treefrog@lemm.ee
      55·
      1 year ago

      The intention is that it’s a step beyond the oath of support, having just dug around in law articles and history on it.

      And reading the article, it sounds like the only one making a semantical argument, is Trump and his lawyers.

      • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.worldEnglish
        33·
        1 year ago

        the only one making a semantical argument, is Trump and his lawyers.

        The problem is that the current Supreme Court clearly would support throwing that out, and they LOVE semantics like that to justify clearly bullshit decisions.

        • vortic@lemmy.world
          5·
          1 year ago

          They also like using history to support their decisions. If it can be shown that the presidential oath is intended to go beyond “support” I would see the court being persuaded that “support” is implied by “protect, preserve, and defend”. It depends on whether the textualists or the pseudo-historians win the day.

          • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
            1·
            1 year ago

            The five conservative “justices” are conservatives first and “justices” second. They will always rule however the standard, bigoted, Fox-News-loving white nationalist will rule. They do this by using wordplay and bad-faith semantics.

            Every word uttered by a conservative is either deception or manipulation. Every word.

        • IninewCrow@lemmy.caEnglish
          4·
          1 year ago

          If interpreting laws is going to just turn into how much money a wealthy individual (or anyone wealthy enough to foot the bill) can argue the semantics of anything … what good and what use is any law?

          • agent_flounder@lemmy.worldEnglish
            6·
            1 year ago

            We are long past the point where power and wealth buys better legal outcomes as evidenced by how few rich and powerful people over the last half century have spent any time in prison for their crimes compared to people with neither wealth nor power.

    • z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml
      28·
      1 year ago

      Exactly. It’s a massive stretch to think there’s a false equivalency between “support” and “preserve, protect, and defend”.

      But of course…this is Trump here. He’s willing to bend himself into a pretzel if it means he can avoid responsibility for anything bad.

      • time_lord@lemmy.world
        103·
        1 year ago

        You can preserve, protect, and defend something you don’t support. Debate 101 at even a high school level is learning how to argue the side of an argument that you don’t support.

        So while in office, he preserved/protected/defended something he didn’t support. He then lead some form of rebellion against it, causing him to be in violation of the spirit of the 14th but not the letter as it’s written, so he should still be qualified to serve.

        The Supreme Court would love this wordplay, except, if they actually accept it, they’re not just invalidating the spirit of the 14th, but undermining it completely as it would never ever ever be relevant to anyone, ever again. And wouldn’t that also be against their oaths to uphold the constitution?

        So most likely Trump will be eligible for re-election because I have no doubt that if they can get away with the Citizens United ruling, they can and will do whatever the hell they want.

        • z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml
          9·
          1 year ago

          Did he really preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution on January 6th though? (Spoiler alert: he didn’t). Perhaps that is the better question here than this semantics argument.

        • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          1 year ago

          I think you can make an argument that if you preserve and protect something, you’re supporting it.

          But the real issue, to me, is that no one takes an oath specifically to “support” the constitution. If the presidential oath isn’t an example of supporting it, then Article Ii makes no sense at all - why would it even be there?

            • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.worldEnglish
              11·
              1 year ago

              Sure, I had no clue that the military oath included “support.”

              Would be a stretch to say that article II of the Constitution was only intended to apply to the military.

              • IamRoot@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                11·
                1 year ago

                Here is what you said with confidence:

                “But the real issue, to me, is that no one takes an oath specifically to “support” the constitution. “

                Then you ignored several people who pointed out that you were wrong.

                Then you responded that you had no clue.

      • brown567@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        1 year ago

        That’d be my defense!

        Like, I can understand thinking my ability exceeds my performance, but I think that might just be a simple overestimation of my ability

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      41·
      1 year ago

      I’ve taken a couple oaths to the US government…

      I dont remember any of them saying “support the constitution”

      So by their logic, this effects no one.

    • squiblet@kbin.social
      1·
      1 year ago

      Maybe he’ll argue that it just means the physical written constitution itself.
      “The constitution is a piece of paper in a box, okay? I defended it”

  • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
    130·
    1 year ago

    The text of the section they are challenging (emphasis added):

    No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, 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.

    It’s an exceptionally stupid argument, even for Trump. Obviously “preserve, protect, and defend” are all forms of support, so this challenge is quite possibly the stupidest legal argument they’ve made so far (which is an extremely high bar). But I suppose they don’t think they can realistically claim that he didnt engage in insurrection.

    • Tidesphere@lemmy.world
      42·
      1 year ago

      Hold up, if that’s the crux of his argument, does that mean that his argument is

      “I can’t be barred from running because I never took an oath to support the constitution. Therefore my inciting insurrection is not covered by this clause. But I totally incited rebellion.”?

      • TechyDad@lemmy.world
        311·
        1 year ago

        “I crossed my fingers when I took the oath of office so it didn’t count. Also, I’m rubber and you’re glue. Whatever 14th Amendment you throw bounces off of me and sticks to you!”

        -Trump’s next legal arguments…

      • vortic@lemmy.world
        191·
        1 year ago

        Unfortunately, I think it is “while I do not admit to starting a rebellion, whether I did or not is immaterial because ‘preserve, protect, and defend’ definitely doesn’t include ‘support’”

    • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
      22·
      1 year ago

      Wow that’s stupid. I’m sure this comes up all the time with wording of other laws and I’m sure judges are used to eviscerating it. Now as long as we don’t get stupid judges…

      • squiblet@kbin.social
        22·
        1 year ago

        If it ends up on the Supreme Court, I’m sure Clarence Thomas will enthusiastically support the idea.

          • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
            41·
            1 year ago

            Uncle Tom is already American.

            And was actually a sweet, kind character that through sheer goodness convinced white people, including his murderers, to reject slavery and prejudice.

            That will not be Clarance Thomas’s story.

            • pensa@kbin.social
              3·
              1 year ago

              I commented that based on the slurs of him from the black community. I do not know the full story but shared it based on what I hear from my black friends. It was explained to me that he was a bad dude that sold out other black people. Similar to Uncle Rukus in The Boondocks.

              With that context, I meant it as there is the black uncle tom that sold out other black people and now we have American uncle tom selling out America.

    • Saganaki@lemmy.one
      72·
      1 year ago

      It’s not quite that simple. To be clear, the argument being proposed by his lawyers is that he is not an “officer of the United States” so it doesn’t apply to him.

      Basically, there’s legal precedent that elected officials aren’t officers of the US because they are elected and not hired. Add to that the sheer number of commas, “and”s, and “or”s, that it can get legally murky.

      NB: Not a lawyer. Read about the above on Mastadon from a legal scholar. Will see if I can find the link.

      • samsepi0l@lemmy.world
        8·
        1 year ago

        Doesn’t the “No person shall be a … elector of President and Vice President” just outright say that the statement obviously includes elected officials? Specifically the POTUS and VPOTUS?

        • BOMBS@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          1 year ago

          I think it directly implies POTUS, especially this part:

          or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States,

          But also, they don’t have to be legally correct or in-keeping with the spirit of the Constitution. Under my assumption that a few of the Supreme Court Justices are surely psychopaths, they just need an interpretation that’s plausible enough to avoid consequences to themselves.

        • Saganaki@lemmy.one
          1·
          1 year ago

          The argument I’ve seen is that the condition part of the clause (insurrection) by language only applies to the bit after “who, having previously…”

          Basically, the argument goes “It says you can’t be President or Vice President if you did insurrection while an officer of the US”—but it doesn’t say you can’t be President if you did insurrection while president of the US.

          To be clear: I think it’s fucking idiotic and against the spirit of the law—but I’m no lawyer/legal expert.

  • Kepabar@startrek.website
    761·
    1 year ago

    There is a record of the Senate debate on this amendment.

    One questioned ‘Why doesn’t this include the president?’.

    Another senator replied ‘It does under the section of anyone who holds an office’.

    The response was ‘Ok, I was unclear on that’. And the debate carried on.

    So the writers obviously intended this to include the office of the president.

      • Kepabar@startrek.website
        6·
        1 year ago

        Actually, it really might in this case.

        A number of the justices currently sitting on the supreme court are (or claim to be) originalists.

        Meaning, the original intent of the writers is the correct interpretation. Evidence showing what that original intent was can be very useful with judges like that.

        • kent_eh@lemmy.caEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Does that “strict originalist” view extend to the “well regulated militia” part of the 2nd ammendment?

          • Kepabar@startrek.website
            5·
            1 year ago

            Yes, it does.

            The way the amendment reads is that the people must be armed in order to form militias to ensure the states stay free; it does not tie the requirement of arms to a militia.

            This is backed up by many statements by the founding fathers who state one of the core components to keeping America free from a tyrannical government is an armed citizenship willing to act, compared to Europe, where the citizenship is disarmed.

    • thejml@lemm.eeEnglish
      23·
      1 year ago

      I wish nothing but the wettest socks for the rest of his days.

      • TechyDad@lemmy.world
        3·
        1 year ago

        I want him to be given a phone, but have the only Internet to be a sporadic one that you can only get when you climb atop the toilet in the cell and reach WAY out to the point that you almost fall down.

        Remind me. How good is Trump’s balance again?

    • BobVersionFour@kbin.social
      61·
      1 year ago

      He shall be followed for the rest of is life by a mexican ( to remember him about the wall ) who only job would be to throw lego under is feet when he don’t have shoes on

  • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.ee
    63·
    1 year ago

    I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

  • mateomaui@reddthat.comEnglish
    45·
    1 year ago

    I’m sorry, fucking what now?

    That’s the nation’s constitutionalists’ preferred candidate, everyone, nothing wrong here.

    • ALQ@lemmy.world
      211·
      1 year ago

      Legally, it’s a fine distinction. What his attorneys are arguing appears to be that, even if he did commit insurrection, the law in question doesn’t apply to the office of the president and, thus, not to Trump. On the surface, the logic is sound: Law applies if conditions are met; conditions were not met, therefore law does not apply.

      The problem for Trump is that the law does apply,^1 so he should face the consequences.

      If I had access to Westlaw or LexisNexis, I’d be interested to look into the caselaw. My concern is that the argument for specific word choice (i.e. “support” was specifically used instead of “preserve, protect, defend”) isn’t without some merit. I’m just glad he can never seem to hire competent attorneys. I’m hoping for a long, long, lonely life behind bars for his retirement years. (Though I know this isn’t one of his criminal cases.)

      1- Assuming, of course, there remains any justice left in the US system. Unfortunately not a small assumption these days.

  • thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    27·
    1 year ago

    “Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”

    ― Jean-Paul Sartre

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
      28·
      1 year ago

      It’s around 32-34% of registered voters. We have a real voter suppression issue here in the states that has been caused, and exacerbated by one of the only two parties we are allowed to have, unless about 80% of the voters decide to change the system.

  • BigMacHole@lemm.ee
    18·
    1 year ago

    If only he had murdered a bunch of small children instead then Republicans might have cared about the Constitution part.