Attorneys for former President Donald Trump argued in court that he never took an oath to “support” the United States Constitution as his defense against an effort to remove him from the ballot in Colorado for violating the insurrection clause.
Trump’s attorneys made the bizarre legal argument in response to a suit filed by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) watchdog group who argued that his actions on Jan. 6, 2021 violates section 3 of the 14th Amendment and seeks to have him disqualified from the ballot in the state.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment states:
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.
But, according to Trump’s legal team that does not apply to the former president because he never swore an oath to ‘support’ the United States Constitution while serving as president.
“The framers excluded the office of President from Section Three purposefully,” Trump’s attorneys wrote. “Section Three does not apply, because the presidency is not an office ‘under the United States,’ the president is not an ‘officer of the United States,’ and President Trump did not take an oath ‘to support the Constitution of the United States.'”
Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president, has denied any wrongdoing relating to the Jan. 6 attack, when his supporters stormed the Capitol to prevent the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory, believing Trump and his allies false claims about a stolen election.
Still, the former president continues to spread lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 election. Last year, he called for the Constitution to be terminated and he be declared the “rightful winner” of the election and be reinstated as president.
