This is the sort of flimsy reasoning that we usually find in Trump’s legal briefs. It’s barely removed from Trump’s own recent claim that he only swore to “preserve and protect” the Constitution, not to “support” it. For a former president who’s promising to be a dictator on day one if he wins next year, this is the greatest Christmas gift imaginable. If Trump’s critics don’t believe in holding him accountable for his actions, why should anyone else?
The legal case for disqualifying Trump centers on Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was ratified in 1869. It sought to address a wide range of difficult political and legal questions that arose after the Civil War and the emancipation of four million enslaved people. To that end, it defines all freedpeople as U.S. citizens, entrenches their equal-protection and due-process rights, and guarantees the wartime national debt. The amendment also forbids anyone who betrayed their oath of office from holding future office.
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, 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, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, 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. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Though written in a bygone style of English, the meaning is fairly straightforward when you break it into its constituent parts. Generally speaking, if someone has held a federal or state office and sworn an oath to support the Constitution, and then subsequently taken part in an insurrection or rebellion, they are permanently ineligible from holding future federal or state office. The only remedy is an act of Congress; lawmakers passed one in 1872 to un-disqualify ex-Confederates in an attempt at national reconciliation.