How Trump Might Be Totally Screwed
The Ring of Fire
933K subscribers
60,528 views Jul 6, 2023
Is Donald Trump close to being barred from running for president? Ring of FIre’s Farron Cousins discusses this.
This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos. If Jack Smith indicts Trump of insurrection, will that be the only way Trump will be ineligible to run for president? Yes. Um, under the 14th Amendment, of course, anyone who participates in an insurrection, anyone who gets uh, gives aid comfort or support to an insurrection, um, they're barred under the 14th amendment from running for office. Again, if Trump is convicted of espionage, it's not enough. He's not barred. If he's convicted of obstruction of justice, he's not barred from running for office. He can run for office unless what he gets convicted of is covered under that 14th amendment. Because the only other two requirements are obviously natural born citizen of the United States and the age requirement and making sure that you have not run a foul of term limits. So yeah, Trump can absolutely run, but if Smith pops him for insurrection, that's a different story, but it also opens up the conversation. Do we think Jack Smith is going to hit Donald Trump with actual insurrection charges? I don't think so. Let's not forget, of course, that part of the investigation is still ongoing. You know, the, the indictments we got, that's only half the investigation. That's the documents. Half the January 6th then attempts to overturn the 2020 election that's still going on. And Lindsey Graham actually hinted recently that he thinks, you know, Smith is gonna hit him with those charges. So what could he hit him with? Well, I think the big one, and this is, you know, according to legal experts, and this one, after looking into it, does make the most sense. You're probably just gonna have conspiracy to defraud the government of the United States of America, you know, trying to convince the people there that, oh no, all these horrible things happened. You have to now throw out the ballots. Well, none of those horrible things did happen. He was trying to defraud the house, the Senate, you know, members of his own cabinet, his lawyers, everybody. So, uh, uh, conspiracy to defraud the United States of America is probably what he will be charged with, and that would be the big one. But I don't think you're gonna get him on insurrection. Um, you know, you could, I guess, make an argument for that because technically Donald Trump was trying to overthrow the dual dually elected government of the United States, but you run into a legal gray area because that duly elected government of the United States had not yet taken power. So by virtue of the fact that Trump did this before Biden was sworn in, you can't necessarily say that he was trying to overthrow the government because the government wasn't yet the government, he was the government. So, I know that sounds weird to people the way I'm describing it, but honestly, that's what would happen in a court. They would pick it apart like that and say, no, no, no, this guy couldn't overthrow the government because he was the government. The other government that he was trying to overthrow wasn't yet the government. So you can't exactly make those arguments because, uh, trust me, skilled lawyers would be able to rip that apart a million different ways. So yes, insurrection would be the only thing they'd get 'em for, but as I just explained, I don't think they'll be able to get 'em for that. Legally speaking, I just don't see it happening.
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