40 House Democrats have put forward legislation to ban former President Trump from holding public office under the 14th Amendment.
Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., who previously led the second impeachment effort against Trump, introduced legislation to invoke Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to keep Trump away from the White House or holding any other office.
The Amendment states:
“No person shall … hold any office, civil or military, under the United States … who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States … 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.”
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Democrats argue that this language, adopted initially to prevent former Confederates from occupying positions in the federal government after the Civil War in the 1860s, should be applied to the 45th President, claiming he incited an insurrection against the U.S. on January 6, 2021.
“Donald Trump very clearly engaged in an insurrection on January 6, 2021, with the intention of overturning the lawful and fair results of the 2020 election. You don’t get to lead a government you tried to destroy,” Cicilline said in a statement.
“Even [Senate Republican leader] Mitch McConnell admits that Trump bears responsibility, saying on the Senate floor that ‘[t] here’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,'” he argued.
“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.”
Democrats state their legislation “details testimony and evidence” gathered by the Select Committee on the January 6th riot, making the case that Trump helped to plan and encouraged an insurrection to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The legislation comes a month after Trump announced his candidacy for President in 2024, where he declared, “America’s comeback starts right now.” Trump highlighted the “festering rot and corruption of Washington, D.C.”
The news comes a week after Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files” revealed federal agencies were in contact with Twitter in the run-up to the 2020 election while being directly involved in censoring content and Trump.
