Will Trump Be Barred From Office?

The New York Times recently reported that two Federalist Society law professors have concluded that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution bars former President Donald Trump from returning to office:

The professors -- William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulsen of the University of St. Thomas -- studied the question for more than a year and detailed their findings in a long article to be published next year in The University of Pennsylvania Law Review.

...

He summarized the article's conclusion: "Donald Trump cannot be president -- cannot run for president, cannot become president, cannot hold office -- unless two-thirds of Congress decides to grant him amnesty for his conduct on Jan. 6." [links omitted, format edits]

The text of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is clear enough:

The transmittal letter for the 14th Amendment (Image by Edward McPherson, LL.D., Clerk of the House of Representatives of the United States, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.)

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.

I am no lawyer, but the only legal question would seem to be whether Trump has "engaged in insurrection or rebellion." The article reportedly argues that he has:

There is, the article said, "abundant evidence" that Mr. Trump engaged in an insurrection, including by setting out to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election, trying to alter vote counts by fraud and intimidation, encouraging bogus slates of competing electors, pressuring the vice president to violate the Constitution, calling for the march on the Capitol and remaining silent for hours during the attack itself.

"It is unquestionably fair to say that Trump 'engaged in' the Jan. 6 insurrection through both his actions and his inaction," the article said.

This is still a country of laws and not men. May the legal machinery operate correctly, and rapidly-enough to settle this question once and for all, and ahead of the election.

-- CAV