Laurence Tribe, Professor, Harvard Law School:
Well, it's quite confusing, and, in fact, it was confusing to the trial court judge herself.
She conducted a very elaborate weeklong trial. There was a great deal of evidence, on the basis of which she carefully found, by clear and convincing evidence, that Donald Trump, not only on January 6, but in the lead-up to January 6, having taken an oath to support the Constitution, turned against it and engaged in an insurrection against it.
But, amazingly, she said, the language of the 14th Amendment, which was designed to protect the country and protect democracy from insurrectionists who had taken an oath to the Constitution, exempts the president. She said that that may sound preposterous.
And it does, because it is. The language clearly covers the presidency as an office under the Constitution. It's described that way throughout the Constitution. Donald Trump himself described it that way in his filings in other cases. And, in fact, exempting the presidency would turn the Constitution upside down.
It would mean, among other things, that Jefferson Davis, having led the Confederacy, could then have turned around after the Civil War and been president again. That's not the way the Constitution was designed or written.
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