The justices seemed generally receptive to the two main points that Trump's lawyer, Jonathan Mitchell, raised in support of reversing the lower court's decision: that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars insurrectionists from holding office, was not self-executing but could only be enforced by a separate act of Congress, and that the provision simply did not apply to presidents.
Justice Jackson pointed out that the text of the amendment did not explicitly include president in the list of offices that could face disqualification for engaging in insurrection. That was because the amendment, she argued, was not initially intended to keep Southern rebels from running for president, but rather to stop them from using their popularity in their home states to seek local offices and get back into power by running for Congress.
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