Before taking office, elected officials swear that they will defend the United States Constitution. But what happens when they are accused of doing the opposite?
While some Republicans in Congress continued to support President Donald Trump’s doomed effort to overthrow the election, critics, including President-elect Joe Biden – alleged that they had violated their oaths and pledged allegiance to Trump.
Oaths, which rarely draw much attention, have become a common theme in the last days of Trump’s presidency, being invoked by members of both sides when they met Wednesday to claim Biden’s victory and a violent crowd of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol..
“They also swore a Bible to defend the Constitution, and that’s where they really go out and are off duty,” said former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, a Republican who served as EPA administrator. during former President George W Bush Administration. “They swore to defend the Constitution against all our enemies, foreign or domestic, and they ignore it.”
Oaths vary slightly between government bodies, but elected officials often swear to defend the Constitution. The Senate website says his current oath is related to the 1860s, “drafted by members of Congress from the Civil War era with the intent to catch traitors.”
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, vowed to honor the oath she took and affirm the results of the presidential election while urging her colleagues to do the same. Republican Sen. Todd Young of Indiana was seen in one video posted on social media telling Trump supporters outside of a Senate office building that he swore the Constitution under God and asked, “Do we still take it seriously in this country?”
Corey Brettschneider, a professor of political science at Brown University and author of “The Oath and the Office: A Guide to the Constitution for Future Presidents,” said the oath should be taken seriously and that Americans should of demanding its application or “the risk is system-wide”. He said he would support censorship, a formal statement of disapproval, for officials who clearly violate their oaths.
“The worst thing that could happen is for people to turn their eyes to the oath and say,‘ Oh, none of them mean that, ’and I think what we need to do in a time of crisis is exactly the opposite – it’s to say, that means something, ”Brettschneider said. “When you break the law, they have to hold you accountable, and that’s what really depends on the American people being outraged when Trump does what he’s done.”
Republicans who have filed or supported demands that challenged Biden’s victory in November have claimed, without evidence, that the election was rigged against Trump. Their cases have failed in court to the United States Supreme Court. Both Republican and Democratic officials have considered the election results legitimate and free from any widespread fraud.
Oaths were often mentioned Wednesday during a joint session of Congress aimed at confirming Biden’s victory. Some Republicans who objected to the election results claimed their oaths forced them to do so, while Democrats urged their counterparts to abide by their oaths and assert Biden as the next president.
“The oath I took this past Sunday to defend and support the Constitution makes it necessary to oppose this transvestite,” said Rep. Lauren Boebert, a newly elected Colorado Republican.
When lawmakers met, violent Trump-loyal protesters stormed the Capitol in an insurgency aimed at preventing Biden from replacing Trump in the White House. As authorities struggled to regain control, Biden asked Trump to keep his oath and move to ease tensions.
“I call on President Trump to go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege,” Biden said.
The Republican Party’s effort to block formal confirmation of Biden’s victory failed after Republicans recycled arguments of fraud and other irregularities that have failed to gain strength.
Democrats were quick to condemn Republicans who continued to oppose the results.
California Representative Adam Schiff asked, “Does our oath to defend the Constitution, made a few days ago, mean very little? I don’t think so.” He added that “an oath is not broken less when the rupture does not reach its end.”
Representative Cori Bush, a Missouri Democrat, said she would table a resolution calling for the expulsion of Republicans who moved to invalidate election results.
“I think Republican members of Congress who have incited this national terrorist attack through their attempts to revoke the election must suffer consequences,” he said. he tweeted. “They have breached their sacred oath of office.”
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, said officials who continued to support Trump’s infallible allegations of fraud violated his oath and his rhetoric encouraged riots that stormed the Capitol.
“They have an allegiance that they have sworn, not to the Constitution and not to the United States of America, but to one man, and that man is Donald Trump,” he said. “And they refuse to walk away from that, no matter what they say, no matter what they do and I don’t think history will judge them kindly for that.”
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Izaguirre reported from Lindenhurst, New York. Associated Press writer Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta contributed to this report.
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