Rant 617: Time to Rid Ourselves of Turncoats
Copyright ? 2021 by Richard L. Hermann
Congress has the power to bar the president and its members who supported the insurrection from continuing in public office and ever holding office again.
While Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution outlines the steps to expel a member of Congress, it requires a two-thirds vote, which is a pretty high bar and unrealistic in the current environment. But there is another Constitutional provision that clearly provides an alternative:
Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment states in pertinent part: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, 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,…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.”
Section 3 was originally directed at those who supported the Confederacy in the Civil War. It provides an alternative expulsion mechanism for ridding the federal government of seditionists and insurrectionists. It can be invoked to dump Trump immediately and forever. It can also bar Senators Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, their Senate colleagues and the 137 Representatives who joined in the attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s legitimate election, from serving in Congress now and in the future. All it takes for each chamber to rid itself of these traitors is a House or Senate resolution passed by a simple majority vote.
Allowing these anti-Americans to continue in office is an unacceptable stain on America. They need to be removed from the privileged positions and institutions they have irretrievably tarnished. Moving forward requires that their treasonous behavior is officially denounced as being beyond the pale, and that a clear precedent be established that such conduct will not be tolerated.
Losing their positions is a necessary first step to cleanse America of these political pariahs. They violated their oaths to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, whereby they swore to "…support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;…” They not only failed to do that; they actively thumbed their noses at it.
Some members of this loathsome crew are asserting that they were merely exercising their first amendment rights. No. They incited and abetted an attempt to take down the U.S. government. As Justice Brandeis stated in delivering the unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court in Sugarman v. United States (1919): “…`freedom of speech' does not mean that a man may say whatever he pleases without the possibility of being called to account for it.” it is not only the right, but the constitutional duty of the Congress to banish them.
But their punishment should not end with expulsion. Along the way, their nefarious doings also violated numerous federal criminal laws. It can begin with 23 U.S. Code §2384, “Seditious Conspiracy,” that explicitly covers their illegal conduct. The wheels of justice need to grind them all into the political and judicial dust.
Dick Hermann
January 12, 2021