Michael Luttig and Laurence Tribe argue that Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the resulting attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 could disqualify him from being on the ballot again under the 14th Amendment.
The two legal experts wrote in a piece for The Atlantic that the 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause, which bars anyone who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof” from holding office, could be applied to Trump.
Luttig and Tribe argued that Trump’s actions in the weeks leading up to and on January 6 met the definition of insurrection or rebellion. They pointed to his repeated claims that the election was stolen, his encouragement of his supporters to march on the Capitol, and his failure to take action to stop the violence once it began.
The authors acknowledged that the 14th Amendment has never been used to disqualify a presidential candidate before. However, they argued that the circumstances surrounding Trump’s actions are unprecedented and that the amendment’s framers would have intended it to apply to such a case.
