POC Former Trump lawyer thinks the ex-president risks being disqualified from office over his handling of January 6 riot

• Ex-Trump lawyer Ty Cobb suggested Trump could be disqualified from office in a CBS interview.
• Cobb said Trump could be barred from future office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
• The provision bars those who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from public office.

Former Trump White House lawyer Ty Cobb said former President Donald Trump risks not just prosecution, but disqualification from office under the 14th Amendment over the January riots in an interview on CBS News’ Major Garrett podcast.

Cobb, who served as a White House counsel representing Trump in 2017 and 2018, said Congress could easily bar Trump from holding office again under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. The once-obscure post-Civil War provision states that no one who “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against a government body or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof” should serve in public office.

“There’s a simple way to disqualify President Trump,” Cobb told Garrett. “He clearly violated the 14th Amendment of the Constitution’s Article III when he gave aid and comfort, and three hours of inaction, with regard to what was happening on the grounds of the Capitol, and sent out the equivocal tweet about Pence suggesting Pence had failed. That clearly gave aid and comfort to the insurrectionists.”

“It was popular early on, but the fact that it’s been delayed and delayed when we could easily modify the conversation by disqualifying him now, whether he gets prosecuted or not, I find sad,” Cobb added, suggesting Congress could do so in the lame-duck session after the 2022 midterms.

Lawsuits are another avenue to disqualify officials for insurrection under the Constitution. A judge in New Mexico removed a local county commissioner, Couy Griffin, from his post over his participation in the January 6 insurrection, making him the first public official in over 100 years to be disqualified from his office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

Griffin, a Cowboys for Trump founder who was convicted of misdemeanor trespassing for breaching the Capitol on January 6, gained national attention for refusing to certify the results of the June 2022 primary election in his capacity as county commissioner in Otero County.

Democratic activists and lawyers have also unsuccessfully attempted to disqualify some Republican members of Congress from running for reelection under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

A judge earlier this year rejected a bid by Georgia voters to disqualify Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from the ballot, finding insufficient evidence that she was an insurrectionist and participated in the riots.

In a similar effort targeting Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, a judge initially ruled in favor of Cawthorn in March. On appeal, a panel of Fourth Circuit of Appeals found that Cawthorn is not immune from challenges to his eligibility — but nly after Cawthorn had already lost his primary election in May.

Democratic lawyers and members of Congress, including those on the January 6 committee, are strategizing on both legislation and state-by-state lawsuits to bar Trump from holding office again under the 14th Amendment, The New York Times recently reported.

Cobb previously told Insider’s Sonam Sheth he believes the sprawling federal probe into the January 6 insurrection and Trump’s activity leading up to and during the siege of the Capitol poses a far larger threat to Trump than the recent search at Mar-a-Lago.

“I think the president is in serious legal water not so much because of the search, but because of the obstructive activity he took in connection with the January 6 proceeding and the attempts to interfere in the election count,” Cobb echoed to CBS.

Cobb told CBS that he doesn’t believe it’s “wise” to prosecute the former president for a “process crime,” but thinks the chances of Trump being indicted in connection with the January 6-related investigations are “very high.”

“That was the first time in American history that a president, unconstitutionally, attempted to remain in power illegally,” Cobb said.

via Business Insider