{"id":38941,"date":"2025-01-21T21:03:25","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T05:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=38941"},"modified":"2025-01-21T21:05:01","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T05:05:01","slug":"its-official-the-us-has-an-illegitimate-presidentits-official","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/01\/21\/its-official-the-us-has-an-illegitimate-presidentits-official\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s official: The US has an illegitimate President"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Trump is barred by the 14th Amendment. Period.<\/a><\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

DEAN OBEIDALLAH<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JAN 20, 2025 (deanobeidallah.substack.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At Noon today it became official: The United States has an illegitimate President.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reason for that statement is simple. It is undisputed that Donald J. Trump \u201cengaged in an insurrection\u201d with his role in the Jan. 6 attack. Thus, Section 3 of the 14th<\/sup> Amendment<\/a> bars Trump from holding office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, that was the very conclusion of the Colorado Supreme Court in December 2023<\/a>. After reviewing the evidence, the court wrote<\/a>, \u201cTrump fully intended to\u2014and did\u2014aid or further the insurrectionists\u2019 common unlawful purpose of preventing the peaceful transfer of power in this country.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Colorado Supreme court then ruled that based on that conduct, Trump is \u201cdisqualified from holding the office of President\u201d <\/strong>by <\/strong>Section 3 of the 14th<\/sup> Amendment. <\/strong>(It\u2019s important to note that this court ruling was not focused on Trump being on the ballot<\/strong>\u2014but being barred from holding the office of President.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s true that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled<\/a> in March of last year that neither Colorado nor other states could bar Trump from the ballot\u2014only Congress had that authority. But despite having the power to do so, the U.S. Supreme Court did not overturn the Colorado Supreme Court\u2019s finding that Trump had \u201cengaged in an insurrection\u201d in violation of the 14th<\/sup> Amendment<\/strong>. Even the GOP justices realized that such a decision would be laughable since we all witnessed Trump not just engaging–but inciting the Jan. 6 attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deeming Trump an \u201cillegitimate\u201d President is the accurate way of looking at this. The swearing in of Trump as \u201cPresident\u201d is no different than if a 25-year-old–who was born in another country–won the election for U.S. President. Would that election victory override Article II<\/a> of the US Constitution that mandates all Presidents be 35 years of age and a \u201cnatural born Citizen\u201d? Of course not. That person from a constitutional point of view would not be a legitimate President. Same must be said about Trump given he is disqualified from office by the 14th<\/sup> Amendment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I say that as both a lawyer who has been advocating<\/a> on this issue for more than three years and as someone who has spoken with constitutional law experts such as John Bonifaz,<\/a> the head of Free Speech For People<\/a>. Both Bonifaz and I agree Trump is undeniably an illegitimate President.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congress, though, does have the unique ability to waive Section 3 of the 14th<\/sup> Amendment that doesn\u2019t exist with the other two conditions to serve as President\u2014namely, age and being born a U.S. citizen. Section 3 of the 14th<\/sup> Amendment<\/a> plainly states that \u201cno person\u201d who \u201cengaged in an insurrection\u201d may hold office, but it also provides that \u201cCongress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.\u201d<\/strong> However, until Congress votes by two-thirds in each chamber, Trump is disqualified from holding office\u2014meaning he\u2019s an illegitimate President.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the real world impact of this? As Bonifaz explained<\/a>, \u201cevery action Trump takes will be illegitimate and will be subject to a federal court challenge.\u201d<\/strong> The hope is someone who has standing in the future will challenge the issue in court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But even if no one does, we should all be calling Trump an illegitimate President for a few reasons. First, it\u2019s how we protect our Constitution. Either we enforce the entire Constitution or we ignore it. By not raising this issue we are saying it\u2019s okay to waive a key constitutional amendment. If we do that now, what is next: Trump saying he can waive the First Amendment protections for free speech?!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second\u2014and yes, this is politically motivated-Trump\u2019s presidency deserves to be undermined. Trump is a convicted felon and an adjudicated rapist who attempted a coup and did all he could to convince Americans that both Presidents Obama and Biden were illegitimate presidents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the case of President Obama, Trump led the racist birther campaign<\/a> where he flooded the airwaves claiming Obama was not born in the United States. Trump\u2019s alleged motivation was because he wanted<\/a> the US Constitution enforced as to who can validly serve as President. But even after Obama released his birth certificate, Trump tweeted<\/a> he had an “extremely credible source” who told him the birth certificate was a fraud. From there, Trump continued for years to raise questions about whether Obama was a legitimate president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, all we want to do is enforce the Constitution like Trump claimed he was doing with the birther campaign!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then came President Biden\u2014who Trump worked tirelessly to delegitimize with his tsunami of election fraud lies. Trump\u2019s lies caused Republicans and some independents to believe Trump actually won\u2014meaning Biden was not a legitimate President. And of course, it was Trump\u2019s election lies that fueled the Jan. 6 insurrection by Trump\u2019s supporters in service of Trump\u2019s plot prevent the transfer of power. (To be clear, Trump\u2019s efforts to delegitimize Biden\u2019s presidency are still alive and well as we saw last week when Trump\u2019s nominee for Attorney General, Pam Bondi, refused<\/a> to state that Trump lost the 2020 election when asked by Senators during her confirmation hearings.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You might ask why does it matter if we say Trump is an illegitimate President?<\/strong> Well, let me ask you: Did Trump\u2019s claims about Obama and Biden being illegitimate have a real-world impact? They did per polling. Let\u2019s return the favor. And the difference is we aren\u2019t lying like Trump was. We are both telling the truth and upholding our Constitution the exact way the framers of the 14th<\/sup> Amendment would\u2019ve demanded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trump is barred by the 14th Amendment. Period. DEAN OBEIDALLAH JAN 20, 2025 (deanobeidallah.substack.com) At Noon today it became official: The United States has an illegitimate President. The reason for that statement is simple. It is undisputed that Donald J. Trump \u201cengaged in an insurrection\u201d with his role in the Jan…. Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38941"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38941"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38945,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38941\/revisions\/38945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}