A fugazi is Italian slang for a fake, deceit, load of crap, bunch of baloney, bull s – – t, and the like.
We’re being given a huge fugazi by some politicians, judges, pundits, and lawyers who tell us Trump is allowed to run for President despite Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
You don’t need to be a judge or a lawyer or Presidential candidate; you can read it for yourself. Here it is:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
So, what do you think? Can Trump legally be on the ballot in your State?
It’s not very complicated, is it? Section 3 says quite clearly and very simply that if an officer of the United State took an oath to support the Constitution, and then engaged in an insurrection or rebellion against the United States, then that person shall not hold any office under the United States.
Of course, the lawyers and politicians will argue about it, but the rest of us simple folk know that the President is an officer of the state, that January 6, 2021, was an insurrection or rebellion, and that Trump engaged in it. Therefore, he is not eligible to be President again unless the Senate and House each vote by two-thirds to allow it. And that ain’t gonna happen.
Chris Christy is one of the politicians who say “the people, not judges” should decide the issue of who gets to run for President, though Christy can hardly keep a straight face when he says that. If someone under age 35 wanted to run for President, a judge would say “No” because the Constitution forbids it. How is this different? And there are other legal reasons one cannot be President: the President must be a natural-born citizen and have been a resident for 14 years.
Peggy Noonan, writing in the Wall Street Journal, has a different reason for saying Trump should not be stopped from running. It’s that he hasn’t actually been convicted of “insurrection” in a Court of Law. Therefore, Noonan argues, it can’t be properly claimed by a few judges that he is subject to Section 3. But to convict him is impossible in any reasonable time frame. There’d be delays ad infinitum, all the way to the Supreme Court – where he’d win for political, not legal, reasons.
And to imagine that the framers of the Amendment in 1868 expected someone to be legally convicted before Section 3 applies is absurd. That’s why they didn’t say so. It would have taken only two or three words to add that provision if they had wanted it, and it’s not there.
But after arguing that Trump must be convicted first, Noonan goes on to say she is convinced: “Trump attempted to overturn a democratic election outcome to hold on to power, that he deliberately and repeatedly lied to the country in furtherance of this aim, that he either directed or egged on violent assault on the U.S. Capitol to halt the Constitutionally mandated vote-counting process, that he attempted to pressure the State of Georgia to alter its final vote count illegally, that he has never shown any remorse for any of these things and would surely do it all again.” Since Noonan believes all that, it is baffling and clearly inconsistent of her to not support judges who call it “insurrection.”
Dictionaries, incidentally, define “insurrection’ as “a violent uprising against an authority or government.” That was no doubt the definition in 1868, too.
He did it, folks, and the Constitution says he should not be allowed to run for any office.
But of course, the issue will end up in the Supreme Court where politics will prevail and the conservative majority will rule that Section 3 does not apply and so Trump can run. A fugazi!
Just sayin’.
John R. Dixon 