CNN’s Elie Honig Rebuts Theory That Trump Is Ineligible To Run Again, Says It Would Lead To ‘Chaos’
CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig panned the idea that former President Donald Trump is ineligible to run for office again because of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
Section 3 of that amendment states no one may hold office in the U.S. government if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
After losing the 2020 presidential election, Trump falsely claimed the contest was rigged against him. On the day the election was certified, he urged a mob of his supporters to march to the Capitol to protest. Subsequently, some of them stormed the building in an attempt to overturn the election.
In an article published in The Atlantic, legal scholars Michael Luttig and Laurence Tribe argue that Trump is ineligible under the Fourteenth Amendment because he incited an insurrection.
Appearing on CNN’s The Lead on Monday, Honig was asked for his reaction.
“They make the case in a piece in The Atlantic that the Constitution prohibits Trump from ever being president again,” guest host Erica Hill said. “They write [that] ‘all officials who ever swore to support the Constitution and who thereafter either engage in the insurrection or rebellion against the Constitution or gave aid and comfort to the enemies of that Constitution are automatically disqualified from holding future office and must therefore be barred from election to any office.'”
Honig disagreed with the theory.
“These are two brilliant scholars,” he began. “They’re correct to note that the Fourteenth Amendment rightly bars someone who’s participated in insurrection or rebellion from holding future office. The problem is that the Fourteenth Amendment tells us nothing about how that decision gets made, nor does any caselaw or statute that’s been passed. Does Congress decide? Is it the Senate? Is it the House? Is it a majority? Is it two-thirds? Is it a court? Is it a jury? Is it a judge?”
He added that the authors’ idea of a “self-executing” mechanism for adjudicating the matter is flawed.
“And what they propose in the article is they say, ‘Well, it’s self-executing,’ which, that does not do it for me,'” Honig continued. “What they’re proposing essentially is, ‘Well, every state, local, county official who handles ballots will just decide on their own whether he’s disqualified or not.’ That would lead to wild inconsistency and chaos, and I don’t think that’s a viable practical solution here.”
Trump is currently under federal and state indictments over his attempt to overturn the election.
Watch above via CNN.
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