The real danger for Marjorie Taylor Greene in the wake of this 14th Amendment court ruling
One of the more perplexing questions in the fallout from the January 6th Capitol attack has been whether the 14th Amendment could somehow be used to force any insurrectionist Republicans out of office. While the 14th Amendment clearly states that participating in an insurrection is grounds for disqualification from office, it doesn’t provide any specific remedies for how such individuals are to be disqualified.
The 14th Amendment is not simply a magic wand that can be waved in the direction of someone who supported the Capitol attack, prompting them to fall through a trap door in the floor of Congress. Even with the precedent established in the late 1800s, any modern day attempt at using the 14th Amendment to try to get a member of Congress disqualified was always going to have to proceed through the courts.
Separate civil cases over 14th Amendment disqualification have been filed against Madison Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene. This week the judge in the Greene case ruled against her attempt at getting the case thrown out on its face, meaning it will proceed to the stage where she has to testify under oath. To be clear, this is not a criminal proceeding. Nor is it some kind of special government hearing to determine whether she’s going to be disqualified from office (no such thing exists). It’s just a civil suit brought by a private party, and it’ll proceed in the same manner as any other civil suit. It’s just that those who have filed the civil suit are seeking the specific remedy of having Green disqualified from the ballot.
It’s next to impossible to predict how this will play out. Is it realistic to think that Greene’s testimony, no matter how much of a disaster it may end up being, will be enough to convince the courts to rule that she must be removed from the ballot? Even if that does happen, she’ll surely appeal the ruling, and it could go all the way to the Supreme Court. Good luck figuring out how such a ruling might go.
But there is a bigger concern here for Marjorie Taylor Greene. When she testifies, it’ll merely be part of a civil case. But when a civil case unearths evidence or testimony of a violation of criminal law, the government can decide to use this as the basis for a criminal case.
So the danger for Greene may be less about whether her testimony somehow gets her disqualified from the Georgia ballot, and more about whether she screws up while testifying and accidentally confesses to a criminal act related to the insurrection. Again, the 14th Amendment is not a magic wand. Using it to try to disqualify anyone was always going to result in a complex court battle. But Greene may have more to worry about than just losing her seat. The Department of Justice will surely be interested in what Greene has to say when she testifies in this case.
