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Backup plan to have Donald Trump ‘BLOCKED from holding office ever again’ pushed as impeachment appears ‘doomed’
SENATORS are plotting a fallback plan to have Donald Trump blocked from holding office ever again as his impending impeachment trial appears increasingly "doomed."
Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Susan Collins are urging support for a vote to censure as it appears the is unlikely to convict him on the House article.
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Although a majority of the Senate voted this week to proceed with a trial, the 55-45 vote falls short of the two-thirds that would be required to convict.
The vote was a , just as he was during his last year after the articles failed to garner the two-thirds majority support necessary.
The and Republicans currently control 50 seats each in the Senate, meaning at least 17 would have to vote with all 50 Democrats in order for Trump to be convicted.
The seemingly doomed impeachment trial has prompted Senators Kaine and Collins to propose a vote to censure the former president as an alternative punishment, reports .
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Like many of the bumps in the road since the former president first took office, the censure would be a history-making vote as no other president has ever been censured after leaving office.
The censure could be a way for senators to publicly condemn Trump on the record, now that the impeachment – called an – looks highly unlikely.
Some Democrats are interested only if at least 10 GOP senators publicly commit to a censure, reported , thus ensuring the 60-vote margin needed to pass major legislation in the chamber.
Virginia's Kaine said adoption of the censure resolution could prevent Trump from holding future office, but legal scholars aren't so sure.
A censure by either or both houses of Congress has no force of law if the person being censured is not a member of Congress, NBC reported.
But, Trump could be blocked from holding future federal office based on the notion he committed “insurrection or rebellion” against the under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
Kaine told CNN on Wednesday the resolution will declare that the "was an insurrection against the Constitution of the United States."
It also will state the finding that Trump "gave aid and comfort to those who carried out the insurrection by repeatedly lying about the election, slandering election officials," and pressuring people to come to Washington during the electoral count.
"This is an alternative that would impose in my view a similar consequence, but it does not require a trial and it does not require a two-thirds vote," he said.
If the Senate supported Sens Kaine and Collins to pass a censure resolution declaring that Trump engaged in insurrection, that could trigger a state to block him from the ballot if he decided to run in 2024.
How would censure work?
It's all based on the reading of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
The notion that a censure could block Trump from holding future federal office is based on how Sens Kaine and Collins are reading Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
The section states: "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."
However, there is a continuing legal question about whether the president is, in fact, "an officer of the United States."
The phrase appears often in the law, but the courts have yet to pin down the meaning when it comes to the person at the top of the executive branch.
Assuming the phrase does apply to the president, if the Senate passed a censure resolution declaring that Trump engaged in insurrection, that might trigger a state to block him from the ballot if he decided to run in 2024.
Trump could then sue, and the courts would have to decide the issue.
Alternatively, Trump could be allowed on the ballot in a state, and an opponent could sue to get him thrown off, which would also get the issue into the courts.
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Trump could then sue, and the courts would have to decide the issue.
Alternatively, Trump could be allowed on the ballot in a state, and an opponent could sue to get him thrown off, which would also get the issue into the courts.
Unlike a vote to convict Trump in an impeachment trial, a vote to censure him would require only a simple majority, which is another reason some senators might find it more likely to succeed.
Trump's second impeachment trial is ‘dead on arrival’ as 45 Republican senators vote en masse against ‘unconstitutional’ hearing
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