On Thursday, The Washington Post published an op-ed entitled, “There is a better option to keep Trump out of office than prosecution,” petitioning Congress to block former President Donald J. Trump from re-election in 2024.

The article was written by NBC News analyst Edward B. Foley, who argued that Congress should weaponize Section 3 of the 14th Amendment against Trump to prevent him from running again. 

“If the goal of prosecuting former President Donald Trump is to protect American democracy from a Trump comeback in 2024, there is a better way to go about it than filing criminal charges,” Foley wrote. 

“Instead, Congress should exercise its constitutional authority to prohibit Trump from seeking the presidency again,” he continued. 

Section 3 of the 14th amendment explicitly authorizes Congress and the DOJ to ban people who have “engaged in insurrection” from running for office. Something Foley repeatedly called on Congress to exercise. 

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Foley said, “Section 3 of the 14th Amendment sets out the procedure. It provides that ‘no person’ shall hold federal office who, ‘having previously taken an oath’ as a federal officer ‘to support the Constitution of the United States,’ has ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.’”

Foley noted that utilizing the 14th Amendment “would avoid all the extra burdens of a criminal trial, including proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Foley believes that the events of January 6 were a criminal act led by the former President but appeared to suggest pursuing a criminal conviction would be difficult.

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“Moreover, safeguarding the 2024 election from the kind of subversion that Trump attempted in 2020 does not require putting him in prison for his past criminality. Instead, what is necessary is to disable him from being a candidate again,” he argued. 

Foley went on to say that if Trump is not blocked from candidacy in the 2024 election, “the Republic is truly in trouble.” 

The continued effort to characterize January 6 as one of the worst days in American history is a sham campaign to distract from the events that have indeed hurt the nation. 

Attorney Jeffrey Scott Shapiro argues that January 6 was not an insurrection. He pointed out the creatively edited evidence used by the shame January 6 committee to paint Trump as a villain. 

In one set of footage played in the public hearings, Trump told the protesters, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” However, the January 6 Committee cut out the “peacefully and patriotically” line in the video of Trump’s speech.

Trump: “Crazy Liz Cheney removed the part of my quote where I urged people to peacefully and patriotically make their voices heard. Think of that, compare that to Maxine Waters, you ever watch her?”

MORE: https://t.co/kx36dBAUgh pic.twitter.com/0uLXQP4eQh

— Newsmax (@newsmax) June 17, 2022

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New York Post columnist Miranda Devine noted that “The 2020 BLM riots injured or blinded more than 2,000 police officers, resulted in the deaths of more than two dozen people and property damage worth more than $1 billion, the most expensive in insurance history.” 

Devine said, “As RealClearInvestigations has found, the 2020 BLM riots resulted in ’15 times more injured police officers, 30 times as many arrests, and estimated damages in dollar terms up to 1,300 times more costly than those of the Capitol riot.’”

“Some House Republicans who oppose abortion rights are pushing legislation to implement a nationwide abortion ban at 15 weeks, coming just hours after the Supreme Court released its opinion overturning Roe v. Wade,” CNN reports.

“The legislation appears unlikely to advance in the Senate in the near future — due in part to the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. Still, the early discussions represent the excitement energizing opponents of abortion rights, eager to capitalize on Friday’s victory.”

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Yesterday, the Deseret News invited me to write an op-ed on Dobbs. I thought I would have some time to think about it, but the Court moved quicker than I expected.

My Op-Ed is titled, “On abortion, justices demonstrate courage under fire.” This piece builds on my essay “Judicial Courage” in the Texas Review of Law & Politics.

Here is the introduction:

In 1973, Roe v. Wade created a constitutional right to abortion. Two decades later, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Supreme Court refused to reverse that controversial decision, writing that “to overrule (Roe) under fire … would subvert the Court’s legitimacy beyond any serious question.”

Today, Roe was overruled in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. And in doing so, the majority demonstrated real courage “under fire.” Five justices were willing to take this bold and correct legal step in the face of never-ending personal attacks, efforts to pack the court, fallout from the leaked draft opinion, protests outside their homes and even an assassination attempt.

Dobbs, which is a triumph for originalism and sound constitutional law, also signals that the court is infused with judicial fortitude. This virtue, more than any particular method of deciding cases, guarantees that the court will steadfastly safeguard the rule of law.

And the conclusion:

Two years ago, I dubbed the final month of the Supreme Court’s term as “Blue June.” In case after case, the court’s purported conservative majority went to the left. Chief Justice John Roberts, the swing vote, found creative ways to strike balances that did not really resolve contentious issues, but avoided any obvious conservative victory. He hewed closely to a jurisprudence of public relations.

Two years later, we are in a very different time — call it “Red June.” Today, the court overruled Roe v. Wade; yesterday the court held that New York’s restrictions on concealed carry were unconstitutional. These two decisions, separated by 24 hours, were handed down in the face of immense pressure from every facet of our society. Yet the justices did not falter. They are infused with judicial courage. And if they stick to their guns, come what may, the rule of law will be steadfastly safeguarded.

I will have much more to say about Red June, or perhaps Red Flag June in due course.

You should also check out Joel Alicea’s piece in City Journal, titled “An Originalist Victory.”

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To acknowledge this achievement is to acknowledge the constitutional theory around which the coalition that brought it about rallied for a half-century: originalism. It was originalism that the pro-life movement adopted after Roe and supported through the confirmation defeat of Robert Bork; the attempted defeats of Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh; and the setback of Casey. The goal of overruling Roe and Casey bound the conservative political movement to the conservative legal movement, and originalism was their common constitutional theory. Dobbs thus had the potential—as I argued in an earlier essay—to exacerbate the tensions over originalism within the conservative legal movement. It would be viewed as the acid test of originalism’s ability to translate theory into practice, and there would be no avoiding the stakes for the conservative legal movement in the case: “complete victory or crisis-inducing defeat,” as I put it. We now know that it was a complete victory, and it was, in large part, originalism’s victory.

I count Joel, Sherif Girgis, and a few others, as leaders in the conservative legal movement who helped advance the debate in Dobbs.