It does apply to the President. Colorado's judge erred here because they did not have access to Federal documents.

We have the minutes from the 39th Congress that literally indicates that it applies to the President.

Why did you omit to exclude them [The office of the President and Vice President]?

— Sen. Reverdy Johnson (D-MD)

Let me call the Senator's attention to the words 'or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States'

— Sen. Lot Morrill (R-MA)

It was a very specific question that was answered by the Senate while they were discussing it. So Judge Wallace's determination is incorrect on the merits. Judges can be wrong sometimes, that's why we have appeals.

Wallace's decision was brilliant legal maneuvering. Having found Trump factually guilty of insurrection, higher courts cannot re-adjudicate or dismiss that fact. It is now written in stone.

Given that this case was going to be appealed, no matter what, her decision basically dropped an anvil on Trump's head. Now SCOTUS cannot disregard the fact that Trump engaged in insurrection. They're stuck with that, that's how our law works. Bet Trump's defense is pissed off.

Only way out now is some serious legal acrobatics to say that 14th does not apply to POTUS. LOL, he's fucked.

And remember, this court is conservative, not partisan. These judges owe neither the GOP nor Trump a damned thing. I'd bet you a crisp $20 bill that, like the GOP leadership, every one of them loathes the man. And unlike the GOP leadership, they no longer have to worry about votes.

They've already declined to hear one Trump case (maybe two?), thereby kicking his loss back to the lower court. Where, ya know, he already lost. They also told Alabama to go fuck themselves on their redistricting shenanigans.

tl;dr: Wallace ruled this way on purpose to fuck Trump.

The 14th is a reconstruction amendment btw, it wasn't drafted or ratified by the founders.

I think what's important here is that the judge ruled that the orange cheeto comitted insurrection. I hope the supreme court does not strike down this part. If they don't, then they may proceed with judging the case based solely on that.

'or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States'

well see, the thing is, the presidency is both civil and military... it doesn't say "and/or" so clearly it's an exclusive 'or' (aka xor) and exempt...
- the super ream court

( ╯︵╰)

Garland tried his best to bury it but the J6 Committee forced his hand.

Honestly the J6 Committee is one of the very few recent examples of thy government actually functioning.

I think Trump is useful to the conservative movement either way, but it's probably better for them if he's a martyr.

Nope, America entered the fascist era with Obama. No, no, I'm still talking about the GOP!!

Fuckers shut down the government TWICE just because they didn't like a black man as a president. And do you remember this one time when Obama was giving a speech and some Republican idiot shouted "you lie!"?

Those were omens for things to come.

My only hope is that, somehow, they have verifiable already ruled against Trump before in other cases and filings.

And also that maybe ruling for him with Biden still in office now would set precedent to potentially backfire on Republicans somehow.

Both are stretches.

Trump hasn't been convicted of insurrection.

I keep seeing this one... Am I missing something, or didn't Colorado convict him of insurrection as part of their case? I thought that was the whole point.

But maybe I'm just trying to rationalize a group of people not acting rationally.

The insurrectionist ban is only for people who participated in the civil war

My guess is this one or close to it. It's going to be an originalist interpretation of something like the definition of "insurrectionist" or "armed" and include a phrase like "the founding fathers didn't envision...". The reasoning might be some bad esoteric case law from the 1800's that defines insurrectionists as carrying literal muskets and pitchforks therefore Trump is not one.

That and they may just stall for time until after the election and claim they couldn't interrupt the democratic process term limits. Either way, Trump's chosen judges are about to have their decisive moment.

My hope is that they just ban him because he no longer has leverage after appointing them, but I am not sure if that would be an even worse indictment of their suitability as Supreme Court judges...

I think the most sound legal reasoning would be to say he hasn't actually been convicted of any charge that constitutes "insurrection". Conviction is how the government asserts and proves that something happened, and to skip this step opens our legal system for a whole lot of abuse. They're going to say that, if and when he is convicted, then he can be barred, but not before.

If you participate in insurrection, you are not allowed to hold any office in the United States… except the highest apparently.

My guess is that they'll rule he doesn't qualify for being kicked off the ballot due to the 14th Amendment, but then they'll "balance" that ruling out by ruling against Trump in his "Presidents are criminally immune no matter what they do" case. As if they'd ever rule in favor of that theory with a Democrat in the White House.

Worried is a safe bet

And if they rule against him, any votes that were cast will be ineligible and won’t be counted. The same as if I had written in someone who was born outside the US, or was under 35 years old. My write-in vote would simply be discarded, because it isn’t for a valid candidate.

Because they wanna. They don't care about standing anymore.