It's time to enforce the Constitution and ban s*******s Republicans from Congress
Thom Hartmann, Independent Media Institute
September 09, 2022

It's time to enforce the Constitution and ban s*******s Republicans from Congress
Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene(R-GA) holds a press conference to call for the dismissal of Dr. Anthony F***i on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on June 15, 2021. (Photo by JIM WATSON / AFP)

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Before I even get into the guts of this argument, just ask yourself: if Democratic Members of Congress had engaged in a s*******s conspiracy to o*******w our government to put or keep a Democratic president in power against both the popular v**e and the E*******l College, and Republicans controlled Congress right now, what would those Republicans be doing?

It’s time to enforce the Constitution, and a judge in New Mexico just kicked off the process. Democrats need to jump on this with the vigor of Trump crashing a Miss Teen USA dressing room.




The 14th Amendment to the Constitution clearly says that if an elected official “shall have engaged in i**********n or r*******n” against the United States and the laws of the United states, “or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof,” that elected official may not “hold any office, civil or military” including those who are “a member of Congress,” a member of “any State legislature” or “an executive or judicial office of any state.”

It was ratified on July 9, 1868, after the Civil War, so courts could prevent t*****rs from the Confederacy from serving in any political office, and expel those who may have made it through over the years. With a two-thirds v**e of both the House and the Senate, the 14th amendment says, such former i**********nists could be re-admitted, but that’s a pretty high bar.


The last time the Amendment was used was in May of 1869, when a Black man named Caesar Griffin was arrested and convicted of a crime and then appealed the conviction because, he claimed, the judge in the case — a former Confederate s***e-holder and the Speaker of the Virginia House when that state seceded from the Union — was illegally a judge because, as a legislator, he had given “aid and comfort” to the Confederate “i**********n” against the United States.

The courts agreed and the Judge, Hugh W. Sheffey, was forced to resign his seat in the winter of 1869 when he refused to pledge allegiance to the US; he went back to practicing law in Staunton, Virginia until his death. The accused criminal, Caesar Griffin, was re-prosecuted by a different non-t*****r judge for a slightly different charge (to avoid double jeopardy) and ended up back in prison.


This week a court in New Mexico revived the issue, kicking Couy Griffin out of his seat as an Otero County commissioner based on that provision of the 14th Amendment.

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While he tried to defend himself by claiming that he’d not engaged in any violence while in the Capitol on J****** 6th and that he had a First Amendment “free speech” right to hold political office on the county commission, District Court Judge Francis Mathew was having none of it.

By simply being there on J****** 6th and offering encouragement to his more violent colleagues in the i**********n, the court determined, he more than met the criteria of “giving aid and comfort” to the people directly engaged in violent i**********n.


Five members of the current Congress have so far been charged under this provision of the 14th Amendment: Madison Cawthorn, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, and Jim Banks.

The charges against Cawthorn were thrown out because, just four years after the 14th Amendment was ratified, President Ulysses Grant determined it wasn’t effective and was, in fact, aiding Klan recruiting: Congress granted a general amnesty to all but the most senior members of the Confederacy with the Amnesty Act of 1872.

That law decreed that:


“[A]ll political disabilities imposed by the third section of the fourteenth article of amendments of the Constitution of the United States are hereby removed from all persons whomsoever, except Senators and Representatives of the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh Congresses , officers in the judicial, military, and naval service of the United States, heads of departments, and foreign ministers of the United States.”

Cawthorn argued, and U.S. District Judge Richard E. Myers II — a Trump-appointed Federalist Society judge — agreed, that the Amnesty Act not only pardoned all the t*****rous Confederates of that time but pre-pardoned all future t*****rs to the United States, even though the law says no such thing.

As Ron Fein, legal director of Free Speech For People (who participated in the case), said of the Trump-appointed judge’s decision:


“According to this court ruling, the 1872 amnesty law, by a trick of wording that — although no one noticed it at the time, or in the 150 years since — completely undermined Congress’s careful decision to write the i**********nist disqualification clause to apply to future i**********ns. This is patently absurd.”

Marjorie Taylor Green’s case went to Fulton County Superior Court Chief Judge Christopher S. Brasher, who recently partially retired after being accused of verbally attacking a Black defendant before his court by “physically pointing at her, angrily raising his voice, and turning visibly red.”

Judge Brasher found that “there is no evidence to show that Rep. Greene participated in the invasion itself,” and refused to allow the parties arguing she should be kept off the b****t to engage in discovery, which, they argued, could have turned up both her alleged text messages to i**********n organizers and her open statements to the public in support of the i**********n.


“[P]re-hearing discovery is improper,” Judge Brasher ruled, while blocking access to evidence of her possible crimes and freeing Greene to run for re-e******n.

The challenge to Congressman Jim Banks, a major Trump supporter, was heard before the Indiana E******ns Commission, which ruled 4-0 that he could remain on the b****t. Banks’ lawyer argued that “Congressman Banks has publicly commented that he did not support that conduct, nor did he engage in it, and he has also called for the prosecution of unlawful conduct that occurred that day.”

That argument — essentially that he didn’t participate in the i**********n and later disapproved of it — was apparently enough for the commissioners. After being confirmed on the b****t, Banks, who v**ed against certifying President Biden’s e******n, released a belligerent statement, saying:


“Many Democrats in Washington hope to weaponize the 14th amendment to disenfranchise President Trump’s 74 million v**ers. I hope they watched today’s unanimous decision.”

The case against Biggs and Gosar was shot down by an Arizona judge who argued that even though the Constitution outlaws such behavior through the 14th Amendment, Congress never passed implementing legislation. Because of this failure, he said, this was an issue for Congress to resolve rather than the courts.

“Therefore, given the current state of the law and in accordance with the United States Constitution,” wrote Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Christopher Coury, “plaintiffs have no private right of action to assert claims under the disqualification clause. … The text of the Constitution is mandatory,” Coury wrote. “It sets forth the single arbiter of the qualifications of members of Congress; that single arbiter is Congress.”


So, right now, the score is 5-1, although all the cases of members of Congress who were allowed to continue to run for office were, arguably, tainted by politics or brought in weak venues like Banks’ e******n commission or Coury’s “not my responsibility” courtroom.

But what about members of the House and Senate who, we’re finding, were actually in direct communication with the armed i**********nists or Trump’s henchmen?

Multiple Senators and House members were texting and carrying on phone calls with Trump and Giuliani on and immediately before the attack, as the J****** 6th Select Committee has found. Some were even talking with Trump or his people during the peak of the J****** 6th attack.


Others, like Lauren Boebert, stand accused of tweeting the location (or absence thereof) of Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress as the Republican mob attacked with the clear intent to k**l Pelosi and Pence.



The case of Couy Griffin was the easiest to prosecute under the 14th Amendment because he was caught in the act on J****** 6th and later convicted of it in court; the others were less directly involved or, if they were, apparently Trump-sympathetic judges refused to allow evidence to be entered in court.

But as more and more evidence becomes public of Republican members of the House and Senate being directly or closely involved in this first attack on Washington, DC since the War of 1812, the pressure to deprive them of their ability to stay in Congress will grow.

As mentioned in the opening paragraph of this article, if it had been Hillary Clinton who’d worked to seize the White House in 2016, you can bet that blocking her collaborators in Congress would be the least of the efforts Republicans would have undertaken. She’d more likely be facing the fate of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, along with any Congressional co-conspirators.

President Biden has correctly identified these people as “semi-f*****ts” and called them out to their faces. Now Democrats in Congress — particularly as more information comes out through the J****** 6th Committee and the efforts of the FBI — need to take the gloves off and challenge the right of i**********nists and those giving them “aid and comfort” to continue to serve in Congress.

Article 3 of the 14th Amendment:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or e*****r 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 i**********n or r*******n against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.

1. A full increase in our Oil production
2. A recovery plan for the National Debt
3. Reversal of unworkable legislation
4. Curbing of Regulations harmful to the public
5. Curbing massive spending, austerity is called for
6. Reaffirmation of the Bill of Rights, especially free speech
7. Ensuring that our military strength is adequate
8. Stop the defunding of police forthwith
9. Reform the tax law preferably by a Fixed Tax system
10. Ensure that state's rights are viable and their areas of authority are defined by law.
11. Reform the school systems, and curb the influence of teachers' unions
12. Eliminate the Department of Education, but provide financial grants to systems in need with no strings
13. Allow open or concealed carry of a weapon
14. Curbing A****a and B*M since all l***s m****r
15. Get full control of our borders by all means
16. Ship i******s back to their home country
17. Deny i******s any government services
18. Pass a comprehensive immigration bill
19. Bring back industries to the US now
20. Find a way to to make the media more objective
21. Require that media broadcast the t***h by law, with a penalty for repeated violation the loss of license.
22. Defend religions from harassment
23. Reform both CIA and the Intel Community
24. Reform the Civil Service to allow firing for cause
25. Publish the t***h about the C***D ** shots effects
26. Reform the CCD
27. Reform the FDA and curb the Pharma's
28. Require much greater government t***sparency
29. Reform the Congress: term limits; standard rules by law; Solve the problem of money to run for office; investigate financial kickback schemes and prosecute offenders; prevent omnibus bills, and by law allow time for review; Make lying to the public a felony offense; Make it so that bills must apply only to one topic at a time and its title must reflect the subject accurately; ensure that logrolling riders are not employed; Address the problem of block v****g rather than v****g one's belief, and curb the powers of congressional leadership.

30. Address the problems presented by large international and US corporations and individuals with enormous wealth in that they can and do exert undue influence on the public and the government. This is especially true during the e******n process, the demonstration and r**ting events and the public's general usage of social media and blocking of use for political effects. Find ways to limit their improper influence.

31. To the extent that collusion exists within government entities, together with silent partners, to foster their own power or the power of an Un-American ideology, this needs to be investigated and rooted out forthwith. Discovery and proof of such biased and Un-American activity must be cause for instant imprisonment and prosecution. Un-American ideologies include championing any cause or movement to o*******w by force or unlawful collusion, especially by representatives of the people that are not supported fully by their constituents, the Constitution of the United States or any of its major Articles or Amendments

Additions and edits welcome!

IMO, he won hands down in the last e******n. No one will ever convince me Biden received more v**es than their savior Obama. I think it goes far beyond that. Having served 4 years as POTUS, Trump has knowledge of the inner workings not available to the general public. Their concern is he’ll blow the lid off their business as usual crime syndicate. He would have nothing to lose in his second term. He won’t need to leverage wh**ever political capital he has to be re-elected. A second Trump term would reveal the true extent of corruption. If I’m wrong, this country as originally intended is lost.