SCOTUS conservatives given 'taste of their own medicine' in new brief

A civil rights group has joined the fight to keep Donald Trump from holding office again with an argument that gives the U.S. Supreme Court a dose of their own medicine.

The non-profit Public Rights Project (PRP) filed an amicus brief on behalf of historians who argue that the U.S. Constitution's insurrection clause should apply to the former president, and that the framers of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment clearly intended that the provision would not only apply for former Confederates but to leaders of future rebellions, reported The Guardian.

"The brief gives the Supreme Court’s originalists, who believe the constitution should be interpreted as it would have been in the era it was written, a taste of their own medicine," the publication reported. "Conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett are self-declared originalists while Samuel Alito has described himself as a 'practical originalist."

PRP president Jill Habig pointed out that the U.S. Capitol was not breached during the Civil War but was on Jan. 6, 2021, and she said the attack was instigated by Trump and carried out by his followers with the intention of overturning American democracy to keep him in power.

“The evidence that we have seen and heard and watched with our own eyes over the last few years has made it quite clear that President Trump lost an election in 2020 and has spent the months and years since then trying to overturn the results of that election in a variety of ways, including people marching to the Capitol and invading the Capitol," Habig said. “It’s difficult to argue with a straight face that these activities don’t qualify for Section 3."