Lawrence: History will remember SCOTUS calling Trump an 'oathbreaking insurrectionist'

well yesterday's Republican primary had what has become the standard vote split of 63% to 33% but this time Nikki Haley got the 63% and Donald Trump got the 33% it was in the smallest Republican primary so far it was in Washington DC where in a city of 700,000 people exactly 676 of them voted for Donald Trump the reason that tiny vote is significant is that Donald Trump's jury pool for special prosecutor Jack Smith's case against Donald Trump for alleged crimes leading up to and on January 6th w

ill be taken that jury pool will be taken from those 700,000 people who spent yesterday not voting for Donald Trump the odds of one of the 676 Republicans who did vote for Donald Trump in Washington DC yesterday ending up on his jury there are worse than your odds with any lottery ticket you could buy anywhere the most important Washington DC voters for Donald Trump though are of course the nine voters on the United States Supreme Court and today all nine of them agreed that Donald Trump who thr

ee of the justices called an oath-breaking insurrectionist cannot be barred from presidential ballots by individual states on the basis of section three of the 14th Amendment and section three of the 14th Amendment as most of you know by now bars anyone who took an oath of office and then engaged in Insurrection from ever holding office again Donald Trump's lawyers lost on several arguments that they presented to the court they argued that the presidency is not an office the Supreme Court ignore

d that argument the Trump lawyers argued that the president is not an officer of the government the Supreme Court ignored that argument and most importantly the Trump lawyers argued that Donald Trump did not engage in Insurrection and that the attack on the capital was not an Insurrection the Supreme Court ignored that argument and left standing the finding by the Colorado Supreme Court that Donald Trump did indeed engage in Insurrection the Supreme Court's opinion simply said that the individua

l states are not allowed to enforce the provisions of section three of the 14th Amendment against candidates for federal office the opinion said that the state of Colorado could enforce section three of the 14th Amendment against candidates seeking state and local offices in Colorado the five Republican men on on the Supreme Court two of whom were appointed by Donald Trump extended their majority opinion far beyond what the nine justices were willing to agree on in the essential ruling by indica

ting that even the federal enforcement of section three of the 14th Amendment would require the Congress to pass implementing legislation the three justices of the Supreme Court appointed by President Obama and president Biden wrote a separate opinion of only six pages where they referred to Donald Trump as an oath-breaking insurrectionist four times and said quote legislation of any kind however is not required and that section three of the 14th Amendment is self-executing meaning that it does

not depend on implementing legislation the three concurring justices Sonia s mayor Elena Kagan and katangi brown Jackson said quote Section 3 provides that when an oath-breaking insurrectionist is disqualified Congress May by a vote of 2third of each house remove such disability it is hard to understand why the Constitution would require a congressional super majority to remove a disqualification if a simple majority could nullify sections three section 3's operation by repealing or declining to

to pass implementing legislation it's worse than they know it would not take a simple majority to decline to pass implementing legislation to vote against implementing legislation it would only take 41 out of 100 Senators to block implementing legislation which according to the procedural rules of the United States Senate requires a 60 vote major majority threshold to pass so if a group of 59 Senators agreed on implementing legislation tomorrow for section three of the 14th Amendment it could n

ot become law it could be blocked by 41 Senators who support an oath breaking Insurrection and want to see insurrectionist and want to see an oath breaking insurrectionist to become president again there are now 49 Republican Senators and only one of of them the retiring Mitt Romney has said he is opposed to the oath-breaking insurrectionist Donald Trump becoming president again that leaves 48 Republican Senators who would refuse to ever approve any implementing legislation for section three of

the 14th Amendment the last judge appointed to the court by Donald Trump Amy con bear wrote her own one paragraph concurring opinion saying simply I agree that states lack the power to enforce section three against presidential candidates that principle is sufficient to resolve this case and I would decide no more than that Justice Barrett then added a second paragraph to her one-page concurrence that did not have a single word of jurist prudence in it it was a political speech aimed at the thre

e other justices who agreed with her that majority the majority of five on the Supreme Court went too far in their opinion Justice Barrett though she apparently agrees with those three justices decided for political purposes that their language was too harsh and that is a political choice not a jurisprudential choice in a political statement unlike any that I've ever seen in a supreme court opinion just Justice Barrett wrote in my judgment this is not the time to amplify disagreement with stency

in her view no doubt stridency means using phrases like an oath breaking insurrectionist to describe Donald Trump jce Barrett continued the court has settled a politically charged issue in the volatile season of a presidential election particularly in this circumstances writings on the court should turn the national temperature down not up for present purposes our differences are far less important than our unanimity all nine justices agree on the outcome of this case that is the message Americ

ans should take home written not like a Supreme Court Justice but like a political speech writer the message Americans should take home Justice sod mayora Justice Kagan and Justice Jackson highlighted the wild inconsistency of the Roberts Court by quoting chief justice Roberts himself who wrote this when he joined the majority opinion in overturning Row versus Wade quote if it is not necessary to decide more to dispose of a case then it is necessary not to decide more more the three justices the

n said that fundamental principle of judicial restraint is practically as old as our Republic yet the court continues on to resolve questions not before us in a sensitive case crying out for judicial restraint it abandons that course today the majority goes beyond the necessities of this case to limit how section three can bar an oath breaking insurrectionist from becoming president although we agree that Colorado cannot enforce Section 3 we protest the majority's effort to use this case to defi

ne the limits of federal enforcement of that provision because we would decide only the issue before us we concur only in the judgment and today at The Florida Club where Donald Trump cannot afford to live without charging other people money to use his home the oath breaking insurrection thank the Supreme Court for their opinion and then spent most of his time asking the court for another favor to Grant him total immunity for any form of criminal prosecution for crimes that he may have committed

while he was president in fact most of his statement was begging for that criminal immunity he did say this about today's opinion frankly they work very quickly on something that will be spoken about 100 years from now and 200 years from now extremely important well he's absolutely right about that it will be spoken of in history classrooms 100 years from now and 200 years from now where he will if the country remains lucky for the next couple of centuries be identified as the only former presi

dent in history who was once blocked from presidential ballots by States invoking section three of the 14th Amendment and those history classes will all note that the Supreme Court opinion that allowed him access to the ballot repeatedly referred to him as an oath-breaking insurrectionist that