In search of historical guidance and legal tools to respond to the violent siege of the U. S. Capitol last week, members of Congress and legal scholars alike are re-examining a little known section of a Reconstruction-era constitutional amendment.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, in theory, gives Congress the authority to bar public officials, who specifically took an oath of allegiance to the U. S. Constitution, from holding office if they "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the Constitution and therefore broke their oath.
My view is it would apply to President Trump and bar him for holding any office either right now or in the future," Pulitzer Prize-winning Civil War historian Eric Foner told ABC News on Monday.
Michael Klarman, constitutional law scholar at Harvard Law School, though told ABC News in email that he believes that applying Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to disqualify from office a member who questioned the legitimacy of the election, based on the events from last week was "a real stretch.