In an interview on MSNBC, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who is the top Democrat on the House Committee on Homeland Security, condemned some of the arguments brought by Donald Trump’s team as he attempts to stay on the ballot for the unfolding presidential race.
Trump is fighting — now at the U.S. Supreme Court — challenges to his eligibility on the basis of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. That amendment restricts individuals who reneged on an oath of office by engaging in insurrection from later holding office, and the connection made to Trump is the violence of January 6, 2021. The Capitol attack that day was perpetrated after Trump spent months lying about what had transpired in the then-recent presidential election while also consistently drawing the attention of his supporters to scheduled Congressional proceedings to certify the presidential election’s results.
Now, Trump’s team is arguing — among other contentions — that the 14th Amendment’s rules don’t even apply to the presidency. They also contend… eventually… that Trump didn’t engage in insurrection, either.
“That is clearly a position taken by Donald Trump’s lawyers,” Thompson said. “They don’t make sense. But in the absence of any real fact, you just make something up and just make it as if, ‘Well, the law doesn’t apply to Donald Trump. His oath is different from everyone else’s.’ And I think the work of our committee on this third anniversary speaks for itself. […] We identified the individuals, Donald Trump specifically and some others, who did promote, orchestrate that day. And then we shared the body of that information with various authorities with jurisdiction.”
The concluding portion hearkens to recommendations for prosecution made by the House committee that investigated January 6 and circumstances leading up to it, which Thompson led. The foundational idea from Trump’s team is that the presidency is procedurally distinct from other roles in government to the point that the 14th Amendment essentially doesn’t apply, though some — like Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) — have pointed to an established history of the presidency being discussed with the same procedural language used in that amendment.
