Donald Trump tells court he had no duty to ‘support’ the US Constitution

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.

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.

that is the exact kind of loophole that gives conservative judges the cover they need to be terrible human beings.

“The best of his ability” is the loophole he should have exploited.

It’s a lot more believable.

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.

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"

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."?

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...

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.

While i hate Trump and don't think he has a leg I can see some give in this argument. Just in the idea that I don't think a president should have to support the entirety of the US constitution. I think a representative of the US government can disagree with aspects of the constitution but still preserve, protect, and defend it.

It's not a very strong argument but there is something to be said.

Really? A link would be much appreciated.

If only things like this mattered in this reality.

The argument is that the word "support" isn't explicitly there. Therefore, the President is not an officer of the government, and therefore Trump isn't barred from being President under the 14th Amendment.

This argument is dumb, of course. Scalia once made a similar one, noting that punishments must be cruel and unusual to be constitutionally banned. Cruel or unusual on their own is fine.

Ah, but see, the word ‘support’ is not explicitly in there so ch-ch-cha! Pocket sand!

From all enemies, foreign and domestic.

"For the 'right' people"

-D. J. D. (In his head)

Edit: "Not the poors, the stupid losers"

Again, D. J. D. (Out loud when talking about the military or working people)

Seems like you can replace anti-Semites with any populist reactionary in this quote. But in terms of an argument, I have seen far too many just end up with replies that ignore most of it and just stick to whatever crumbs they still see as an opening, specially when they know they can intimidate and disconcert by number.

Very few ever "fall silently", as this quote portrays, it is either a forced silence by the conversation being closed by moderators who are either complicit or getting bombarded with intimidation and alarmism themselves, or by branching out into gaslighting far outside of the discussion. Getting the last word is worth shit, much like silence itself. But with so many thinking silence indicates rightness, is it a wonder that so much of the word is addicted to the most permanent form of silence, death? History is written by the victors, upon the body of corpses.

I can tell you this: Trump isn't the sort who will ever fall silent.

Even if he went to prison, he's not going to be hanging out with gang members of any kind, except for prison guards.

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

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

I think you mean fetuses. Republicans don't care about children after they're outside of a uterus.

Not if he did it with a gun. Or they were already born. That's where they draw the line.

They were already born they're politically useless now.

As long as they were non white children, they would have applauded.

They'd call them thugs in the press and then argue the definition of "children"

Everything he did just became the new norm for the GOP to defend. If he had done even worse, it wouldn’t have made him cross a line with the GOP, it just would have normalized even worse actions.

Give him time.

Republicans don't care about children

the nation’s constitutionalists’

Just like everything else they claim, that's a blatant lie.

Never argue with them on the basis of their claims - protecting America, balancing the budget, saving the children. Those are never good faith arguments, they’re just appeals to feelings.

Instead argue with them on what they actually do.

No he is not. Generally "Constitutionalists" would be those who believe in freedom and liberty for all, which is more like the Libertarians than Republicans. You will find very little support for Trump with them.

Permanently Deleted

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.

And isn't illegible to run for any office ever again.

Not just without his makeup... Also without his hair piece, Adderall, weird combover, weird oversized suit to hide his diapers, ridiculous long tie, girdle, Adderall, spanx, shoes with high heels and lifts inside, Adderall, teleprompter, ozempic, carefully prescribed camera angles to not show his gut/baldspot/chin vulva, Adderall, doctor to lie about his weight/health and his regular mcfishy deluxe diet.

And he also won't have anymore Adderall.

Don't insult baboons like that.

There's about a dozen layers of nuance that need to be addressed before we advocate for all million or so military members to rise up against presidents (or congressional representatives, or judiciaries, or...)

The first of which is the definition of "enemy."

It's a huge fucking stretch to expect individual soldiers to be able to declare who is or is not an enemy when you're not under imminent danger or protecting any critical assets. Supervising officers largely do not make that decision, as they're focused on a specific near-term tasking set. Unit commanders largely do not make that decision, as they're focused on meshing tactical warfare requirements with the administrative and logistical burdens needed for a competent force. Even combatant commanders largely do not make that decision, as they fight for resources and posture their chess pieces to be able to respond in SHTF situations. The same way we do not expect US Naval ships facing harassment from Iranian rocket boats on a daily basis to decide that "today's the day" and start a war with Iran is how important this distinction is and why it's not an easy ask.

The military needs an actual order, coming from some combination of the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Council in order to define enemies and engage in combat. Congress (should) officially declare enemies of the United States. There is some current debate on if the US needs to officially declare "enemies" in order to add gravity to some charges like treason, but my understanding is that China is no more an enemy of the US than Russia is. Another way of saying that is the US might not be friendly towards some, but is not willing to declare those countries as explicit enemies. It's hard to perform effective diplomacy with another entity if you've already announced that you cannot coexist peacefully.

Thus, expecting the military to rise up against a president is expecting them to jump every level in the chain of command and take on the impossible decision of deciding what's in the United States' best interest themselves. I think that's generally considered a shitty take.

It is not only the military who takes the oath to support the Constitution and defend it against all enemies. It's generally most Federal employees. I took the oath as a requirement for one of my former jobs too and I'm not military. I was proud to take that oath and I still uphold it for life.

Unfortunately, that statement has been successfully argued in court.

https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/law-and-life/do-the-police-have-an-obligation-to-protect-you/

This is actually nothing like that.

Besides what @0110010001100010@lemmy.world pointed out, "To Protect and to Serve" is just a motto, specifically the LAPD's (and other forces have also adopted this). Police aren't public protectors, their job is just to enforce the law (and a lot struggle with that).

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.

Nowhere near that many.

it's more like 40% of voters

This is one of the few things Trump actually excels at. Every time you think he's gone as low as he could possibly go, he somehow finds a way to sink even lower.

It would be impressive if it weren't so dangerous.

He has the best words.

It isn't immutable. There are already 27 amendments.

What are you actually arguing in relation to the subject of this post?

Your post feels odd... like a drunk driver killed a kid and then you came in here and said, "now hear me out, the person was 13 years old, does that actually qualify as a kid?"

If it helps to understand. I am from a red state. Stand your ground.