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Ben Weingarten Federalist Senior Contributor; Claremont Institute Fellow
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Left’s assault on Supreme Court an attempt to discourage Trump

Ben Weingarten Federalist Senior Contributor; Claremont Institute Fellow
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Using a 14th Amendment clause, a left-leaning group in Colorado is arguing that former President Donald Trump should be kept off the presidential ballot. This clause disqualifies individuals who have “engaged in an insurrection or rebellion” from seeking higher office. Such challenges may arise in other states, potentially leading to Supreme Court involvement.

Straight Arrow News contributor Ben Weingarten sees a coordinated effort by the Left to target conservative Supreme Court justices as part of their strategy to prevent Trump’s reelection bid.

It seems inevitable to me that some or all of these cases are going to land at the Supreme Court — the last place that could provide a remedy for a hyper-politicized and weaponized injustice system. That’s one of the key reasons I believe that Democrats have concurrently been engaged in a massive de-legitimization campaign against that court, as its composition has swung at least on paper towards the Right. 

The Left’s assault on conservatives on the court, and the court broadly, of course, goes back a long way, from Borking, to the high-tech lynching of Clarence Thomas, to the Kavanaugh caper. That assault reached new heights with the leak of the Dobbs abortion opinion, with protesters agitating outside the houses of justices for days … protesters not prosecuted, despite their violating of the law by protesting outside their homes — an effort culminating in a plotted assassination of Justice Kavanaugh. 

On September 6, a left wing group filed a lawsuit aiming to bar former President Donald Trump from the ballot in Colorado, under section three of the 14th amendment. That post Civil War provision disqualifies for Office anyone who was a member of Congress officer of the United States member of any state legislature, or executive or judicial officer of any state who engaged in insurrection or rebellion. 

 

Donald Trump, of course, was none of those things when the Capitol riot broke out, nor has he been charged with insurrection. But no matter. There’s been a great hullabaloo created by popular legal minds recently, that he ought to be disqualified under the 14th amendment. 

 

Anyway, this comes on the heels of a tested and largely failed effort to keep so called insurrectionist Republicans, including prominent GOP members of Congress from the ballot during the 2022 midterm election cycle on these very grounds. It’s an information operation, now merging into a legal warfare operation. The disqualification efforts in fact constitute one leg of the legal jihad against Donald Trump, and that crippling his candidacy and perhaps taking the vote out of the hands of the public. 

 

In defense of democracy, of course, the other leg is the four cases currently being litigated against him, including by his successors Justice Department, as he rises in the polls against said successor that I’ve argued constitute a political nuclear warfare campaign masquerading as an exercise in justice. The rabid prosecutors have been torturing laws to hang them around the neck of the former president and GOP front run in the middle of a campaign, a frivolous and vengeful effort pursued arguably in violation of laws, norms and core principles of justice. 

 

It seems inevitable to me that some or all of these cases are going to land at the Supreme Court, the last place that could provide a remedy for a hyper politicized and weaponized injustice system. That’s one of the key reasons I believe that Democrats have concurrently been engaged in a massive de legitimization campaign against that court, as its composition has swung at least on paper towards the right. 

 

The left’s assault on conservatives on the court and the court broadly, of course, goes back a long way from Borking to the high tech lynching of Clarence Thomas to the Cavanaugh caper. That assault reached new heights with the leak of the Dobbs abortion opinion. With protesters agitating outside the houses of justices for days, protesters not prosecuted despite their violating of the law by protesting outside their homes and effort culminating in a product assassination of justice Cavanaugh. 

 

The point was that the court would not be allowed to deliberate now on important decisions without facing mob intimidation. Now there’s been a concerted effort to attack justices, namely, including Justice Thomas, the uniquely reviled judge by the left in my view, precisely because of his radical and revolutionary jurisprudence in defense of the Constitution, and his standing as a stalwart for that constitution as a black man who refuses to back down. 

 

Despite the left’s hatred and vitriol on so called ethics grounds because Justice Thomas has friends and goes on trips with them. These are totally baseless attacks, but they aim to put pressure on other conservatives and the court as a whole decide rightly as the left deems it recused from cases for example, that might involve Trump, particularly if you were appointed by him or there’s any nexus between yourself and your family and him or his character assassination, potentially impeachment, dragging your family through the mud mobs outside your home and worse, perhaps even a modern Nullification Crisis. 

 

In other words, this is a pressure campaign to ensure that if questions about Trump comes before SCOTUS, it folds skirt as being one of the few venues the left does not have completely sewn up and control it. For the sake of our republic. Let’s pray that it holds, but that we must rely ultimately on a single body as the ultimate backstop for liberty and justice in this country for the right to elect a representative rather than have that right ripped out of our hands by a crazed and weaponized ruling elite. speaks to how deep the rot currently runs.

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