Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Sol Wisenberg and Article III Project President Mike Davis blasted the Democrats’ attempts to “disqualify” former President Donald Trump from election ballots on Monday’s edition of “The Ingraham Angle.”
Wisenberg called the Democrats “hypocritical” over their consideration of invoking the 14th Amendment to undercut Trump’s presidential hopes. (RELATED: ALAN DERSHOWITZ: No, The 14th Amendment Can’t Disqualify Trump)
“There’s no question that it’s hypocritical, and this is more of the same. Can you think of anything more anti-democratic than the idea that some state functionary, some state secretary of state can declare on his or her own, ‘well, I think Donald Trump is engaged in insurrection or rebellion as understood in the 14th amendment,’ without any kind of a trial, without any kind of a process, without kind of definition. It’s just ludicrous,” Wisenberg said.
Davis called the Democrats’ supposed strategy “unconstitutional.” He pointed out an article by Stanford law professor Michael McConnell and said it called the Democrats’ attempt to “disqualify” Trump under the 14th Amendment “a bogus legal theory.”
“In order to disqualify under the 14th Amendment, you have to follow a federal statute on insurrection and rebellion, a criminal statute, get a criminal conviction with a judge and a jury. And it has to stand up on appeal before you can even consider this. Where, there’s no evidence whatsoever of insurrection. Democrats look for several years with the January 6th commission and they found zero evidence, because it doesn’t exist,” Davis said.
Democrats have floated using the 14th Amendment to bar Trump from taking office again. In December 2022, Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation which would prevent Trump from assuming another role in federal government.
“The 14th Amendment makes clear that based on his past behavior, Donald Trump is disqualified from ever holding federal office again and, under Section 5, Congress has the power to pass legislation to implement this prohibition,” Democratic Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline said in December 2022.