Source: Washington Post
by George F Will
“[P]eople who would wield the [14th Amendment] to extinguish Trump’s electoral career are trying to solve a political problem by cleverness, citing the amendment’s Section 3. It says that no person may ‘hold any office, civil or military, under the United States’ who, having taken an oath as ‘an officer of the United States’ to ‘support the Constitution,’ has subsequently ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.’ … Arguments about the continuing force and sweep of Section 3 are interesting; unleavened by prudence, they are dangerous. There could be no surer way to further embitter and calcify Trump’s supporters than to stretch constitutional language to eliminate an electoral choice. And, in the process, to preempt judicial determinations about the nature and legal status of Trump’s Jan. 6 behavior.” (09/15/23)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/09/15/14th-amendment-trump-disqualification-dangerous/