text in a dramatic departure from previous amendments sought to bring justice to millions of formerly enslaved black americans and to insure that the formerly elected officials who waged war against the united states would not be allowed to serve in elected office again. that is the purpose of section 3. now, knowing all that, at issue today before the court were some key questions. one, do states have the right to enforce section 3 or can only congress do that? two, did the drafters intend to include presidents and vice presidents when they drafted this punishment? and three, is this section self-executing, which is technical jargon for this thing goes into effect without any other mechanisms such as anoct of congress. trump s lawyer jonathan mitchell who happens to be the guy who wrote the texas abortion bounty law, kept referring to something known as the griffin case. what is the griffin case, you ask. if you read any recent stories about the 14th amendment, it s possible
helping people right here in san francisco. i m also a father raising two kids in the city. deeply concerned that city hall is allowing crime and lawlessness to spread. now we can do something about it by voting yes on prop e. a common sense solution that ensures we use community safety cameras to catch repeat offenders and hold them accountable. vote yes on e. is it possible to count on my internet like my customers count on me? it is with comcast business. keeping you up and running with 99.9% network reliability. and security that helps outsmart threats to your data. moaire dida twoo? your data, too. there s even round-the- clock customer support. so you can be there for your customers. hey billy, how you doin? with comcast business, reliability isn t just possible. thanks. it s happening. get started for $49.99 a month. plus, ask how to get up to a $1000 prepaid card with a qualifying internet package. don t wait, call and switch today! the same election. some smaller par
suggest that. is there any evidence to suggest that the presidency was what they were focused on? there is some evidence of that. there were people saying we don t want jefferson davis to be elected president and there was also one of the drafts of section 3 specifically mentioned the presidency and the vice president. but it wasn t the final enactment. right. it wasn t the final enactment, but it shows there was some concern about some people about confederate insurrectionists ascending to the presidency. we look at the historical evidence and pick the evidence we like and interpret is tan den shally because you can throw this counterveiling evidence back in our face. we wanted to focus on the text of the constitution, this was a compromised provision that was enacted in section 3. let me ask you another question about the states. you have forcefully made an argument about the states not being able to enforce section 3, so if we agree with you on that, what happens
classified documents. the special counsel found evidence that president biden, quote, willfully retaineds classified materials found no reason to press criminal charges. drew distinction between the criminal probe of handling of documents and his findings regarding president biden. the long standing justice department priniple that you cannot indict a sitting president does not apply and would not bring charges even if joe biden were no longer president. we ll have more on that later in the program. we begin with a hearing at the nation s highest court. an historic hearing for some very big questions about the constitution. the future of our democracy and at the heart of the case, a request from voters for some accountability for an unprecedented insurrection. first up, jonathan mitchell, the attorney for donald trump, argued among other things, that january 6th was not an insurrection. it was a riot. he also argued that the president is not technically an officer of the unit
Stephanie ruhle, all here for msnbcs special coverage of these Court Arguments on the disqualification of donald trump. Welcome to our Primetime Recap of the historic proceedings that the United States Supreme Court. I am Rachel Maddow at msnbc home base along with my beloved colleagues, Lawrence Odonnell, and joy reid, and chris hayes, happy to have you all here. No cameras are allowed in federal courtrooms, including the United States Supreme Court, but today, for the arguments about whether china for having an insurrection against the u. S. Government, the justices did allow for the sound of the proceedings, the audio, to be livestreamed here on msnbc, we carried the audio of those Oral Arguments live unfold. That was starting just after 10 am eastern time. But we also know that people have lives, jobs, school, other responsibilities and might make it hard to take two hours out of a thursday to stare at an Audio Speaker for hours trying to figure out of that was gorsuch, or a Leader