Politics

Five ways the Supreme Court could rule for Trump on the 14th Amendment

Published

2 years ago

February 12, 2024

Five ways the Supreme Court could rule for Trump on the 14th Amendment

WASHINGTON —

Now that the Supreme Court has heard arguments in the case of President Trump and the 14th Amendment, it seems clear which side will win. The big question is what route the justices will take to allow him onto the ballot.

In the course of more than two hours of oral arguments Thursday, eight justices advanced at least five paths they might take to rule in Trump’s favor.

Only Justice Sonia Sotomayor seemed to seriously entertain the idea of ruling against him.

Here’s a look at where the court may end up.

What’s at issue

In December, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Trump was ineligible to appear on that state’s ballot because of the 14th Amendment, which was adopted after the Civil War. The amendment’s Section 3 reads:

“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.”

The amendment was designed to keep former Confederates from regaining power in the U.S. government, but it still has effect and covers Trump, the Colorado court ruled.

The decision had four key elements:

As president, Trump had “taken an oath … as an officer of the United States” and is therefore covered by the amendment’s language.
Based on a five-day hearing in a Colorado trial court, the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was an “insurrection.”
Trump “engaged” in that insurrection through his words and deeds.
Under the terms of the amendment, he is ineligible to “hold any office … under the United States,” including the presidency.

The U.S. Supreme Court justices seemed skeptical of all four elements.

Who gets to decide?

The argument that appeared to attract the most support among the justices questioned the state’s power to decide the case at all.

“Why should a single state have the ability to make this determination, not only for their own citizens but for the rest of the nation?” Justice Elena Kagan asked Jason Murray, the lawyer representing the voters who challenged Trump’s eligibility. “That seems quite extraordinary, doesn’t it?”

Murray insisted that Colorado was deciding only for its citizens and its ballots. What the state did was no different from what others have done in excluding candidates who were too young to hold office or weren’t born in the United States, he said.

Kagan was clearly skeptical. A ruling upholding Colorado’s decision would have nationwide impact, she said.

“There are certain national questions where states are not the repository of authority,” she said. “What’s a state doing deciding who other citizens get to vote for for president?”

The 14th Amendment was “designed to take away powers from the states” after the Civil War, she said later, when Shannon Stevenson, the lawyer for Colorado, defended the ruling. It would be odd for it to be interpreted to allow every state to go its own way, Kagan said.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, like Kagan, among the three Democratic appointees on the court, similarly questioned the authority of states to make their own decisions on eligibility.

Why would the writers of the 14th Amendment “design a system” that would allow “different states suddenly to say, ‘You’re eligible, you’re not?’” she asked.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said that allowing a state-by-state approach inevitably would invite a court in a conservative state to rule that President Biden was ineligible.

“Surely there will be disqualification proceedings on the other side,” he said. “I would expect … a goodly number of states will say, whoever the Democratic candidate is, ‘You’re off the ballot.’”

Must Congress pass a law?

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh pointed to a decision from 1869, the year after the 14th Amendment was ratified. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase ruled that the disqualification of insurrectionists could not be used unless Congress passed specific legislation to implement it.

Chase issued that ruling, in what is known as Griffin’s case, in his role as an appeals court judge “riding the circuit,” as justices did in the 19th century. So it isn’t a binding Supreme Court precedent. But, as Kavanaugh noted, it is a guide to what at least some figures at the time believed the 14th Amendment to mean. The fact that Congress the following year passed a law to set up the sort of process Chase called for is further evidence, he said.

That 1870 law was repealed long ago, and there’s almost no chance the current, gridlocked Congress would pass implementing legislation now. So a ruling on those grounds would effectively end the case.

One risk would remain for Trump: There is still a law against insurrection on the books, and it provides that a person who is convicted is barred from office. But Trump has not been charged under that law.

A Trump exception?

For Trump’s lawyer, Jonathan Mitchell, a ruling on those grounds would be a partial victory, but the former president might risk future challenges.

The issue of whether Trump was qualified “could come back with a vengeance” after the election, warned Murray, the lawyer challenging him.

“Ultimately, members of Congress may have to make the determination after a presidential election, if President Trump wins, about whether or not he’s disqualified from office and whether to count votes cast for him,” Murray said.

To end the case once and for all, Mitchell urged the court to rule that Trump was never an “officer of the United States” and therefore is exempt from the 14th Amendment’s ban.

Mitchell insisted that those words have a specific, technical meaning in the Constitution: “‘Officer of the United States’ refers only to appointed officials,” not to elected officials like the president, he told the justices.

Some prominent legal scholars have scoffed at that, saying the Constitution should be read as a normal person would read it, not as a “secret code,” as one recent law review article put it.

Mitchell’s argument also ran into objections from some justices.

As Sotomayor noted, the argument feels like “a bit of a gerrymandered rule” because it would benefit only Trump: Alone among presidents, he was never an appointed federal official, a member of Congress or a state official before his election.

“It does seem odd that President Trump falls through the cracks, in a way,” Mitchell conceded. But, he insisted, that’s what the language of the amendment requires.

Is the presidency covered?

Jackson raised a related question: Is the presidency one of the offices the amendment bars an insurrectionist from holding?

The opening words of Section 3 list the specific offices from which an insurrectionist would be barred, she noted. It includes senator, representative and member of the electoral college but never mentions the president. Perhaps that was deliberate, because the writers of the 14th Amendment were mostly focused on preventing “the South from rising again” by keeping former Confederates out of Congress and state offices, she said.

At minimum, the language has “ambiguity,” she said. The court could interpret that ambiguous language to allow voters to make their own decisions.

Is it too early?

Mitchell pressed one other argument that appeared to interest some justices: The amendment says insurrectionists cannot “hold any office” but doesn’t say they can’t run for one.

That’s important, because Congress could vote before Inauguration Day to lift the disqualification. By barring Trump from the ballot, Colorado would, in effect, preempt his right to ask Congress for amnesty, he said.

When the justices convene Friday to discuss the case behind closed doors, they’ll see whether they can consolidate behind one of those arguments. They’re under pressure to act quickly, because the presidential campaign is well underway. If they can produce a unanimous ruling, it might lower the partisan temperature of an inflamed election year.

Politics

DHS defends McLaughlin against allegations husband’s company profited millions from ad contracts: ‘Baseless’

Published

47 minutes ago

March 4, 2026

Press Room

DHS defends McLaughlin against allegations husband’s company profited millions from ad contracts: ‘Baseless’

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EXCLUSIVE: Newly obtained financial statements shed light on claims that former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin’s husband’s company made millions from a DHS advertising campaign.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem faced intense questioning during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, and Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., specifically called out the agency for contracting a public relations firm headed by McLaughlin’s husband, Benjamin Yoho.

“I have personally reviewed the allegations against Ms. McLaughlin, and I find them to be baseless,” DHS General Counsel James Percival told Fox News Digital. “Nothing illegal or unethical occurred with respect to these contracts. Ms. McLaughlin was not involved in selecting any subcontractors.

“She is, however, a superstar in the public affairs world, so I am not surprised that she married a successful businessman whose services were attractive to these outside firms.”

Newly obtained financial statements address allegations that former Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin’s husband’s firm improperly profited from a multimillion-dollar DHS ad campaign. Lawmakers pressed Secretary Kristi Noem over the contracts during a heated Senate hearing. (Jack Gruber/USA Today)

Kennedy alleged that Yoho’s firm, The Strategy Group, “got most of the money” out of what the Louisiana Republican senator says was $220 million in “television advertisements that feature [Noem] prominently.”

“I’m sorry,” Kennedy said. “Safe America Media was a company formed 11 days before you picked them. And that the Strategy Group got most of the money. And the head of that is married to your former spokesperson.”

“It’s just hard for me to believe knowing the president as I do, that you said, ‘Mr. President, here’s some ads I’ve cut, and I’m going to spend $220 million running them,’ that he would have agreed to that,” Kennedy explained. “I don’t think Russ Vought at OMB [Office of Management and Budget] would have agreed to that.”

‘YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED!’: PROTESTER DRAGGED FROM KRISTI NOEM’S SENATE HEARING

Senate scrutiny intensified over a DHS advertising campaign after Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., questioned whether a firm linked to McLaughlin’s husband benefited unfairly. DHS officials and the company deny any wrongdoing or multimillion-dollar profits. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The Strategy Group is a conservative advertising agency for which Yoho serves as CEO.

Figures obtained by Fox News Digital show a slightly lesser total advertising expenditure of approximately $185 million, with a total of roughly $146.5 million going to a campaign called “Save America.”

However, of the total that went to “Save America,” roughly $348,000 went to production costs, while the remaining $142 million went to “media buys.”

Sources at DHS say that media buys are the cost of actually buying the ads themselves, whether purchased from social media or for a TV ad.

Kennedy also alleged that the bidding process for the contracts never took place and that Safe America Media’s recent founding was a cause for concern and collusion between McLaughlin and her husband’s business.

WATCH THE MOST VIRAL MOMENTS AS KRISTI NOEM’S HEARING GOES OFF THE RAILS

Debate over DHS’ “Save America” ad campaign intensified as senators challenged its costs and contractor ties, even as agency officials touted the initiative as a historic success in promoting self-deportation. (Graeme Sloan/Getty Images)

“Yes they did,” Noem responded during the hearing. “They went out to a competitive bid, and career officials at the department chose who would do those advertising commercials.”

The Strategy Group posted to X Tuesday that it never had a contract with the department. While it did receive several hundred thousand dollars for production costs associated with the advertising campaigns, The Strategy Group never made millions.

“The Strategy Group has never had a contract with DHS,” the post said. “We had a subcontract with Safe America [Media] for limited production services. Safe America paid us $226,137.17 total for 5 film shoots, 45 produced video advertisements and 6 produced radio advertisements.

DHS SPOKESWOMAN TRICIA MCLAUGHLIN TO LEAVE TRUMP ADMIN, SOURCE CONFIRMS

Critics raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest in a high-dollar DHS advertising effort, but department representatives say McLaughlin recused herself and that subcontracting decisions were made independently. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

“If you’re going to try to question our integrity, bring actual evidence — we did,” the post concluded.

Because these ads were purchased using public funds, all contract totals are publicly available.

Lauren Bis, who took up the role of assistant secretary once McLaughlin left office, told Fox News Digital Tuesday that scrutiny from Republicans and Democrats over the advertising spending was unjustified because the campaigns resulted in “the most successful ad campaign in U.S. history.”

“Sanctuary politicians are attacking this ad campaign because it has been successful in CLOSING our borders and getting more than 2.2 million illegal aliens to LEAVE the U.S.,” Bis said.

“The DHS domestic and international ad campaign was the most successful ad campaign in U.S. history. The results speak for themselves: 2.2 million illegal aliens self-deported, and we now have the most secure border in American history.”

KRISTI NOEM TO FACE SENATE GRILLING OVER MINNEAPOLIS SHOOTINGS AS DHS SHUTDOWN HITS WEEK 3

The Trump administration reaffirmed that all illegal immigrants are eligible for deportations as they focus on arresting violent criminals first. (Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images)

Bis also compared the cost of arresting and deporting an illegal migrant to that of the minimal cost of an illegal migrant self-deporting. The department says the advertising campaign played a key role in marketing self-deportation.

A spokesperson at DHS also told Fox News Digital that contractors decide who they hire, fulfilling the terms of a contract, not the department itself.

“By law, DHS cannot and does not determine, control or weigh in on who contractors hire or use to fulfill the terms of the contract,” a DHS spokesperson told Fox. “Those decisions are made by the contractor alone. We have only become aware of these companies because of this inquiry and did not hire those companies.”

The spokesperson also noted that McLaughlin “recused herself” from interactions with subcontractors to avoid “any perceived appearance of impropriety.”

“Upon hearing who the subcontractors were for production of the ad, Ms. McLaughlin recused herself from any interaction or engagement with any subcontractors to avoid any perceived appearance of impropriety,” the spokesperson continued. “DHS Office of Public Affairs is the program officer. Ms. McLaughlin oversees the DHS Office of Public Affairs, which is simply the vehicle for this contract.”

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem takes her seat as she arrives to testify during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

McLaughlin told Fox News Digital the criticism of her and her family by senators at the hearing is a matter of public manipulation.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

“This is yet another example of politicians intentionally trying to dupe and manipulate the public to try to manufacture division and anger,” McLaughlin told Fox News Digital. “The ad spend and contracts are a matter of public record, and the process was done by the book.

“These politicians would rather smear private citizens and American small businesses than do any basic research.”

Fox News Digital’s Alexandra Koch contributed to this report.

Preston Mizell is a writer with Fox News Digital covering breaking news.

Politics

Senate rejects war powers measure to withdraw forces from Iran

Published

1 hour ago

March 4, 2026

Press Room

Senate rejects war powers measure to withdraw forces from Iran

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans blocked a war powers resolution Wednesday designed to withdraw U.S. forces from hostilities in Iran, as the Trump administration accelerates its military campaign in a conflict that has killed hundreds, including at least six American service members.

The motion failed in a vote of 47-53.

In addition to pulling out military resources from the Middle East, the measure — introduced by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) — would have required Congress’ explicit approval before future engagement with Iran, a power granted to the legislative branch in the Constitution.

The House, where Republicans also hold an advantage, is scheduled to weigh in on a similar measure Thursday. Even if both Democratic-led measures were to succeed, President Trump was widely expected to veto the legislation.

“We are doing very well on the war front, to put it mildly,” President Trump said at a White House event on Wednesday afternoon. The president, who has come under scrutiny for offering shifting explanations on the war’s endgame, said that if he was asked to scale the American military operation from one to 10, he would rate it a 15.

Democrats dispute that Trump possesses the authority to wage the ongoing operation in Iran without explicit congressional approval.

Acknowledging the measure was unlikely to succeed, they framed the vote as a strategy to force lawmakers to put their support for or opposition to the war on record.

“Today every senator — every single one — will pick a side,” Schumer said. “Do you stand with the American people who are exhausted with forever wars in the Middle East, or stand with Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth as they bumble us headfirst into another war?”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and most of his Republican colleagues have maintained that the president carried out a “pre-emptive” and “defensive” strike in Iran, giving him full authority to continue unilateral military operations.

Republicans saw the vote as the “last roadblock” stopping Trump from carrying out his mission against the Islamic Republic.

“I think the president has the authority that he needs to conduct the activities and operations that are currently underway there. There are a lot of controversy and questions around the war powers act, but I think the president is acting in the best interest of the nation and our national security interests,” Thune said at a news conference.

Senators largely held to party loyalties, with the exception of Kentucky Republican Rand Paul, who broke ranks to support the measure, and Pennsylvania Democrat John Fetterman, who opposed it.

The vote comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that the war against Iran is “accelerating,” with American and Israeli forces expanding air operations into Iranian territory. He pointed to evidence released by U.S. Central Command of a submarine strike on an Iranian warship, and also lauded other strikes throughout the region as civilian casualties in Iran surpassed 1,000 on the fourth day of the conflict, according to rights groups.

“We’re going to continue to do well,” Trump said Wednesday. “We have the greatest military in the world by far and that was a tremendous threat to us for many years. Forty-seven years they’ve been killing our people and killing people all over the world, and we have great support.”

Republicans blocked a similar war powers vote in January after the president ordered U.S. special forces to capture and extradite Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas on drug trafficking charges.

GOP leaders argued that the outcome of that mission equated to a quick success in the Middle East, despite an uncertain timeline from the Department of Defense.

In the House, lawmakers will vote on a separate war powers effort Thursday. That bill is led by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), the two lawmakers who authored the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

“Instead of sending billions overseas, we need to invest in jobs, healthcare, and education here,” Khanna said on X.

In addition to that proposal, moderate Democrats in the House have introduced a separate resolution that would give the administration a 30-day window to justify continued hostilities in the Middle East before requiring a formal declaration of war or authorization from Congress.

Politics

Video: U.S. ‘Accelerating’ Military Assault in Iran, Hegseth Says

Published

12 hours ago

March 4, 2026

Press Room

Video: U.S. ‘Accelerating’ Military Assault in Iran, Hegseth Says

new video loaded: U.S. ‘Accelerating’ Military Assault in Iran, Hegseth Says

On the fifth day of the war in Iran, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the U.S. military operation was intensifying and that more warplanes were arriving in the region.

By Christina Kelso

March 4, 2026