Trump Lies about what he said
On Truth Social on Saturday, he repeated false claims about election fraud, which he said “allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”
After sparking a controversy by calling for the "termination" of constitutional law, Donald Trump is now arguing he didn't write what he wrote.
Republicans move to re-write the US Constitution
Trump’s lawyers wrote in a brief to the state’s highest court.
“Section Three does not apply, because the presidency is not an office ‘under the United States,’ the president is not an ‘officer of the United States,’ and President Trump did not take an oath ‘to support the Constitution of the United States,'”
Donald Trump's Legal Defense Says: He Never Swore Oath 'to Support the Constitution'
Article II of the U.S. Constitution requires presidents-elect to read an oath promising to “preserve, protect and defend” the document as they are being sworn into office.
The Constitution explicitly tells us, over and over, that the Presidency is an “office.” The natural meaning of “officer of the United States” is anyone who holds a federal “office.” And the natural reading of “oath to support the Constitution” includes the stronger Presidential oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.”
What Justice Scalia Thought About Whether Presidents Are “Officers of the United States”
In a 2014 concurrence and a short letter elaborating on it, Scalia indicated that the president was an “officer of the United States.”
WHY THE INCOMPATIBILITY CLAUSE APPLIES TO THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
Evidence that the President is an "Officer of the United States" for Purposes of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment - Southern California Law Review
'I have an Article 2 where I have the right to do whatever I want as president'
'My Authority Is Total'
For decades, conservatives have pointed to the 10th Amendment as the very essence of decentralized government. Now, it's not clear what Trump's GOP supporters believe.
All Journalism that doesn't praise Trump is "Fake News" and the "Enemy of the People"
FIRST AMENDMENT
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
From fake news to enemy of the people: An anatomy of Trump’s tweets
The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. We defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal.
But where the former president only talked about exposing journalists, the current leader is putting that plan into action
The media's definition of fake news vs. Donald Trump's
Journalism is not a crime: The president has weaponized the term against the press, but dangerous misinformation has proliferated under his watch, writes Alex Woodward
This takes “fake news” to a whole new level
Law enforcement and security leaders are seeing a disturbing rise in violent threats inspired by the president.
Donald Trump Thinks the Freedom of the Press Is ‘Disgusting’
Trump calls for media companies to lose licenses if they are critical of him
Shortly after assuming office in January 2017, President Donald Trump accused the press of being an enemy of the American people. Attacks on the media had been a hallmark of Trump’s presidential campaign, but this charge marked a dramatic turning point: language like this ventured into dangerous territory. Twentieth-century dictatorsnotably, Stalin, Hitler, and Maohad all denounced their critics, especially the press, as enemies of the people. Their goal was to delegitimize the work of the press as fake news and create confusion in the public mind about what’s real and what isn’t; what can be trusted and what can’t be.
That, it seems, is also Trump’s goal. In Enemy of the People, Marvin Kalb, an award-winning American journalist with more than six decades of experience both as a journalist and media observer, writes with passion about why we should fear for the future of American democracy because of the unrelenting attacks by the Trump administration on the press.
The president is learning the limits of power
JANUARY 24, 2021 An Exit Survey of Trump’s Constitutional Misdeeds
Trump broke norms and coarsened American political culture, but the bulk of his constitutional abuses involved pen-and-phone policymaking of a familiar sort.
Two centuries of U.S. constitutional history make clear that Donald Trump is liable to criminal prosecution.
His determination to put the 14th Amendment in the trash can of history should draw the most concern.
Mazars and Vance, and President Trump’s Ongoing Assault on our Structural Constitution by STEVEN D. SCHWINN Professor of Law, The John Marshall Law School
Older Resources
February 20, 2017 Trump Is Violating the Constitution
It may be true that Donald Trump has read the Constitution. But it’s unclear if he understands it.
July 13, 2016 DONALD TRUMP: A ONE-MAN CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS
The Republican President-elect's statements and policy proposals would blatantly violate the inalienable rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
2016 Research Paper: Donald Trump vs. The Constitution
2016 Research Paper: Donald Trump’s war against the First Amendment: Control and shut down parts of the internet; pledge to oppress the Freedom of the Press through libel laws and litigation
In After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency, Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith provide a comprehensive roadmap for reform of the presidency in the post-Trump era.In fourteen chapters they offer more than fifty concrete proposals concerning presidential conflicts of interest, foreign influence on elections, pardon power abuse, assaults on the press, law enforcement independence, Special Counsel procedures, FBI investigations of presidents and presidential campaigns, the role of the White House Counsel, war powers, control of nuclear weapons, executive branch vacancies, domestic emergency powers, how one administration should examine possible crimes by the president of a prior administration, and more.Each set of reform proposals is preceded by rich descriptions of relevant presidential history, and relevant background law and norms, that place the proposed reforms in context. All of the proposals are prefaced by a chapter that explains how Trump--and, in some cases, his predecessors--conducted the presidency in ways that justify these reforms.After Trump will thus be essential reading for the coming debate on how to reconstruct the laws and norms that constitute and govern the world’s most powerful office.It’s hard to imagine two better co-authors for the task. Both served in senior executive branch positions—in the administrations of Barack Obama and George W. Bush, respectively—and have written widely on the presidency.Bob Bauer served from 2010-2011 as White House Counsel to President Barack Obama, who in 2013 named Bauer to be Co-Chair of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. He is a Professor of Practice and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at New York University School of Law, as well as the co-director of its Legislative and Regulatory Process Clinic.Jack Goldsmith served as Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel from 2003-2004, and Special Counsel to the Department of Defense from 2002-2003. He is the Learned Hand Professor at Harvard Law School, co-founder of Lawfare, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.Together, in this book, they set the terms for the national discussion to come about the presidency, its powers, and its limits.
For Further Research:
Exposing Donald Trump, the Trump Crime Family, and the Republican Terrorist Organization behind him
