Before taking office, elected officials vow to defend the United States Constitution. But what happens when they are accused of doing the opposite?
As some Republicans in Congress continued to support President Donald Trump’s doomed effort to overturn the election, critics – including President-elect Joe Biden – claimed that they had violated his oaths and instead pledged allegiance to Trump.
Oaths, which rarely attract much attention, became a common topic in the last days of Trump’s presidency, being invoked by members of both parties when they met on Wednesday to assert Biden’s victory and a violent crowd of supporters of Trump invaded the U.S. Capitol.
“They also swore on a Bible to defend the Constitution, and that is where they are really acting out and neglecting duty,” said former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman, a Republican who served as EPA administrator during the former President George W. Bush Administration. “They have sworn to defend the Constitution against all of our enemies, foreign or domestic, and are ignoring it.”
Oaths vary slightly between government agencies, but elected officials generally swear to defend the Constitution. The Senate website says that its current oath is linked to the 1860s, “written by members of the Civil War-era Congress with the intention of entangling traitors.”
Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, pledged to honor her oath and affirm the results of the presidential election, while urging her colleagues to do the same. Republican Senator Todd Young of Indiana was seen in a video posted on social media telling Trump supporters outside a Senate building that he took an oath to the constitution under God and asked, “Do we still take this seriously in this country?”
Corey Brettschneider, professor of political science at Brown University and author of “The oath and the office: a constitutional guide for future presidents,” said the oath must be taken seriously and that Americans must demand its enforcement or “risk it’s for the whole system. ”He said he would support censorship, a formal disapproval statement, for employees who clearly violated their oaths.
“The worst that could happen is that people would roll their eyes at the oath and say, ‘Oh, none of them meant it’, and I think what we have to do in a time of crisis is just the opposite – it is to say, it means something, ”said Brettschneider. “When you break the law, you need to be held accountable, and that’s what it’s really up to the American people to be outraged when Trump does what he did.”
Republicans who filed or supported lawsuits contesting Biden’s victory in November alleged, without evidence, that the election was rigged against Trump. His cases have been disapproved in court before the United States Supreme Court. Republican and Democratic officials consider the election results to be legitimate and free from any widespread fraud.
Oaths were mentioned frequently on Wednesday during a joint session of Congress aimed at confirming Biden’s victory. Some Republicans who objected to the election results claimed that their oaths demanded that they do so, while Democrats asked their counterparts to honor their oaths and declare Biden as the next president.
“The oath I took last Sunday to defend and support the Constitution makes it necessary for me to oppose this farce,” said Rep. Lauren Boebert, a newly elected Republican from Colorado.
As lawmakers gathered, violent protesters loyal to Trump stormed the Capitol in an insurrection aimed at preventing Biden from replacing Trump in the White House. While the authorities struggled to regain control, Biden asked Trump to fulfill his oath and act to ease tensions.
“I ask President Trump to go on national television now to fulfill his oath, defend the constitution and demand an end to this siege,” said Biden.
The Republican Party’s effort to block formal confirmation of Biden’s victory ended up failing after Republicans recycled arguments of fraud and other irregularities that failed to gain momentum.
Democrats were quick to condemn Republicans, who continued to oppose the results.
Congressman Adam Schiff of California asked: “Does our pledge to defend the Constitution, made just a few days ago, mean so little? I don’t think so. “He added that” an oath is no less broken when the breach does not reach its end. “
Congresswoman Cori Bush, a Democrat from Missouri, said she would present a resolution calling for the expulsion of Republicans who tried to invalidate the election results.
“I believe that the Republican members of Congress who incited this domestic terrorist attack through their attempts to overthrow the election must face the consequences,” she tweeted. “They broke their sacred oath of office.”
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, said officials who continued to support Trump’s baseless allegations of fraud violated his oath, and his rhetoric encouraged protesters who invaded the Capitol.
“They have an allegiance they have sworn – not to the Constitution and not to the United States of America, but to a man, and that man is Donald Trump,” she said. “And they refuse to walk away from it, no matter what he says, no matter what he does, and I think history will not judge them well for that.”