Mrs. Clinton,
I find myself once again putting on the hat of a degreed, professional journalist to educate you on the laws that govern the office for which you, and Donald Trump, are campaigning for, namely, President of the United States of America.
This morning on CNN, you said, quite clearly, that Mr. Trump is not “qualified” to be the president. All political arguments aside, I would expect someone who holds herself out to be a lawyer, albeit one with a law license that was suspended 14 years ago, to know one of the simplest things in the constitution.
It appears to be a common shortcoming of people in Washington politics who hold themselves out to be lawyers. Your former boss, Barack Obama the former “constitutional lecturer”, hasn’t held a law license since 2007.
So to realize that neither one of you operates with an accurate definition of “qualification” to be president, is troubling indeed. One would think as former lawyers, the text of that document would have more than a passing knowledge in your world.
But, like folks in my industry who collect video examples of politicians saying one thing and then turn around and saying something else and deny the first video ever existed (despite us playing it), I’m here to give you a refresher course on this very important subject that you have clearly forgotten about.
The source for this lesson is The Constitution of the United States of America. You can find copies of it at Yale Law school, where you earned your JD, at Harvard Law, where Mr. Obama earned his, or from any computer connected to the internet. Please open your copy to Article II, section 1.
Direct your attention to the fifth paragraph. It reads:
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
Those are the qualifications to be president. Those are the ONLY qualifications to be president. Anyone saying anything short of this, or in excess to this, is demonstrably wrong, no matter what they claim. To recap (consider this the Cliff notes)
1) Be a natural-born Citizen.
2) Be at least 35 years old.
3) Have lived here for at east 14 years.
Now, you can opine that other things SHOULD be needed to be qualified to be president. But that’s OPINION, not law, and should be billboarded as such. When you said this morning, “I have concluded he is not qualified to be president of the United States,” you were wrong. Given that you once actually HELD a law license, it’s even more troubling that this is how you interpret, in your legally trained mind, the paragraph quoted, and paraphrased, above.
You went on to tell what you FELT the qualifications should be, and that’s your right, as it is of everyone in this country, citizen or not. But your accusing Mr. Trump of being unqualified is wrong and you know it. He is every bit as qualified as you are, no more and no less. Please refer again to the Cliff’s notes before you pontificate again on this subject. Your “legal conclusions” carry much more weight when you know the law. You apparently used to know the law. It’s time you looked again.
Then again, a LOT of people are looking again at who is actually trying to “preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States”.
“3) Have lived here for at east 14 years.”
Thank God Trump is from the east.