In basic they made it clear how important it was to have civilian leadership over the military. This is a core concept in the US.
We’ve had plenty of military officers as president, but never while president.
I’d love to see a legal mechanism for preventing Trump from running, but charging him as an officer is not it.
But officer doesn’t necessarily mean military. In fact there are many civilian officers, as an officer is someone who holds an office. In fact one need not hold an office to act as an officer of an organisation, it simply needs them to be acting in an official capacity.
Sure, but the post specifically questions if commander in chief is an officer in the military, and no, there are not.
Officer of the military ≠ officer in the military. Looping back to the point other commenters have made about civilian leadership over the military, the relevant section of the 14th Amendment establishes the existence of civilian offices under the US. The court finding also refers to POTUS as “Chief Executive Officer of the Executive Branch”. In each hypothetical scenario of the Commander in Chief being categorized as a civilian office or instead being categorized as a military office, it is covered by the critical word “or” in “hold any office, civil or military, under the United States…”. Ultimately, the role of Commander in Chief is an “office, civilian or military, under the United States”, and to “have engaged in insurrection” while in this office of the US would disqualify a person from holding this office again (except the court decided otherwise 🙄).
And once again I’m defeated by misreading a single word.
The court ruling literally refers to him as an officer of the US Executive branch
Edit: I have since disavowed this instance
“Chief Executive Officer” means Officer of the Executive branch of government. That’s not a military position.
But that said, the military is a part of the Executive Branch, and the president is also the “Commander in Chief” of the military, however, that is not a military position either.
On paper*, the military is answerable to 1) the Constitution and 2) the President. The President is not answerable to the military. The President commands the military without being in the military.
*I say on paper because, although military personal are duty-bound to disobey unconstitutional orders—even if they come from the President—in practice they don’t have a great track record of doing it.
