A South Florida lawyer has filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump seeking to have the former president declared ineligible to run for another term as president.
The lawsuit, citing Trump’s involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, wants the federal courts to enforce the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, added after the Civil War to prevent people who engaged in rebellion against the United States from holding office again.
Lawrence Caplan’s lawsuit asserts the provision clearly applies to Trump:
“President Trump’s efforts both in Washington, as well as in Georgia and perhaps other states, as well as the consequential assault on the U.S. Capitol … make him ineligible to ever serve in federal office again. Now given that the facts seem to be crystal clear that Trump was involved to some extent in the insurrection that took place on January 6th, the sole remaining question is whether American jurists who swear an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution upon their entry to the bench, will choose to follow the letter of the Constitution in this case.”
Caplan concluded that the “bottom line here is that President Trump both engaged in an insurrection and also gave aid and comfort to other individuals who were engaging in such actions, within the clear meaning of those terms” as spelled out in the 14th Amendment “Trump is no longer eligible to seek the office of the President of the United States, or of any other state of the Union.”
Caplan didn’t come up with the theory on his own.
The theory has received lots of attention in recent weeks after legal scholars — including one of the nation’s preeminent conservative legal thinkers and members of the conservative Federalist Society — said the 14th Amendment unquestionably applies to Trump, and prohibits him from another term as president.
Caplan’s lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in South Florida, utilizes that theory in asking the court to declare Trump is barred from…
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