Reprinted from hartmannreport.com
It's time to enforce the Constitution, and a judge in New Mexico just kicked off the process. Democrats need to jump on this with the vigor of Trump crashing a Miss Teen USA dressing room
Before I even get into the guts of this argument, just ask yourself: if Democratic Members of Congress had engaged in a seditious conspiracy to overthrow our government to put or keep a Democratic president in power against both the popular vote and the Electoral College, and Republicans controlled Congress right now, what would those Republicans be doing?
It's time to enforce the Constitution, and a judge in New Mexico just kicked off the process. Democrats need to jump on this with the vigor of Trump crashing a Miss Teen USA dressing room.
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution clearly says that if an elected official "shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the United States and the laws of the United states, "or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof," that elected official may not "hold any office, civil or military" including those who are "a member of Congress," a member of "any State legislature" or "an executive or judicial office of any state."
It was ratified on July 9, 1868, after the Civil War, so courts could prevent traitors from the Confederacy from serving in any political office, and expel those who may have made it through over the years. With a two-thirds vote of both the House and the Senate, the 14th amendment says, such former insurrectionists could be re-admitted, but that's a pretty high bar.
The last time the Amendment was used was in May of 1869, when a Black man named Caesar Griffin was arrested and convicted of a crime and then appealed the conviction because, he claimed, the judge in the case "- a former Confederate slave-holder and the Speaker of the Virginia House when that state seceded from the Union "- was illegally a judge because, as a legislator, he had given "aid and comfort" to the Confederate "insurrection" against the United States.
The courts agreed and the Judge, Hugh W. Sheffey, was forced to resign his seat in the winter of 1869 when he refused to pledge allegiance to the US; he went back to practicing law in Staunton, Virginia until his death. The accused criminal, Caesar Griffin, was re-prosecuted by a different non-traitor judge for a slightly different charge (to avoid double jeopardy) and ended up back in prison.
This week a court in New Mexico revived the issue, kicking Couy Griffin out of his seat as an Otero County commissioner based on that provision of the 14th Amendment.
While he tried to defend himself by claiming that he'd not engaged in any violence while in the Capitol on January 6th and that he had a First Amendment "free speech" right to hold political office on the county commission, District Court Judge Francis Mathew was having none of it.
By simply being there on January 6th and offering encouragement to his more violent colleagues in the insurrection, the court determined, he more than met the criteria of "giving aid and comfort" to the people directly engaged in violent insurrection.
Five members of the current Congress have so far been charged under this provision of the 14th Amendment: Madison Cawthorn, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, and Jim Banks.
The charges against Cawthorn were thrown out because, just four years after the 14th Amendment was ratified, President Ulysses Grant determined it wasn't effective and was, in fact, aiding Klan recruiting: Congress granted a general amnesty to all but the most senior members of the Confederacy with the Amnesty Act of 1872.
That law decreed that:
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