Proposed Amendment — The States’ Shield Against a Compromised Executive — A Blue State “Project 2025”

Clause I  That whenever the person holding the Office of President, or any officer entrusted with the execution of the laws of these United States, shall, by willful act or negligent allowance, invite, solicit, accept, or conceal the favor, guidance, monies, intelligence, or other beneficence of a power known to be in declared or de facto enmity to this Republic, and shall, in consequence of such favor, alter the course of national policy, stay the hand of lawful defense, diminish the enforcement of rightful sanctions, or extend to such power any advantage in commerce, arms, or counsel, such conduct being contrary to the oath freely sworn and the trust reposed by the People, that officer shall be forthwith removed from all station, stripped of authority, and made answerable in a court constituted for treason and subversion, there to receive judgment up to and including perpetual confinement without the hope of parole or pardon, and with the forfeiture of all ill-gotten gain, office, title, and honor, the better to make whole the dignity and security of the Union.

Clause II  That as the several States are not vassals but coequal guardians of the constitutional order, each having given life and treasure to secure the independence and liberties of the whole, it is both their right and their solemn duty, upon credible evidence that an Executive Officer hath been corrupted in judgment or allegiance by a foreign adversary, to join in assembly, and by a majority of legislatures so concurring, declare such officer suspended from all powers of the Executive, such suspension to endure until a trial of the matter be concluded, the verdict rendered, and the sentence carried forth; and no protest of party, nor pretense of immunity, shall stay this interposition of the sovereign States in defense of the commonweal.

Clause III  That no plea of diplomacy, negotiation, or customary intercourse shall excuse the trafficking of secrets, the granting of strategic advantage, or the utterance of public declarations in praise of an enemy power, where such acts are undertaken with intent, or with the natural and probable effect, of advancing the designs of said enemy, nor shall the cloak of political speech be stretched to cover the taking of foreign treasure, the laundering of adversary influence through sham contracts or charities, or the quieting of loyal servants of the Republic who would speak truth of such dealings.

Clause IV  That inasmuch as the defense of liberty requireth more than the mere expulsion of a corrupt magistrate, the Congress, and where Congress is unwilling, the States in concert, shall have power to impose upon the guilty the loss of all property and revenues derived from their station or from the adversary’s hand, to bar them for life from the holding of any trust or dignity under the United States or any State thereof, to publish their names in a register of infamy, and to withhold from them all pensions, stipends, and honors otherwise due, for it is neither meet nor safe that those who have trafficked with the enemy should live at the expense of the people they have betrayed.

Clause V  That where the magnitude of the offense be such that it imperils the peace, security, or continued independence of these United States, or where it bringeth the instruments of war, the councils of strategy, or the confidences of allies into the adversary’s grasp, the lawful penalty, upon conviction, may be imprisonment for the term of the offender’s natural life without possibility of parole, save only in cases of mortal infirmity and upon the unanimous consent of a court convened for that mercy; for to set loose again upon the world one who hath thus sold their country is to tempt the very destruction of the Republic.

Clause VI  That the means of proving such treachery shall be neither so loose as to invite injustice nor so narrow as to make conviction impossible; and to this end, the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, the confession of the accused in open court, the lawful intercept of communications, or the records of financial transaction with the adversary, any two of these in agreement, shall suffice for conviction, and no claim of secrecy, privilege, or classification shall be so construed as to hide from the court the evidence of a magistrate’s corruption.

Clause VII  That whensoever it shall be made manifest, by deposition, instrument, or other probative writing under seal, that the Chief Magistrate or any functionary cloaked with the dignities and prerogatives of the Executive hath, wittingly or by wilful blindness, entered into compact, league, or tacit connivance with a Power foreign and adverse, thereby to procure unto himself lucre, repute, or continuance in place, or to enfeeble the armature of this Union’s defence, it shall enure to the several States, assembled in lawful quorum, to pronounce such officer suspended ab initio, the said suspension to obtain until judgment final be rendered in a tribunal competent to the cognizance of so grave a malefaction; and the plea that such commerce with the enemy was for the public good shall not avail as bar or mitigation, being repugnant to the maxim that no man may serve two masters, nor the Republic and its foe at once.

Clause VIII  That if any person, invested with the command of the nation’s councils, treasuries, or arms, shall, in contempt of his fealty, abet, suffer, or countenance the sowing of sedition, tumult, or insurrection within the territories of these United States, whether at the instigation of an alien adversary or for his own usurpation, such person shall be deemed attainted in honour, faith, and allegiance; and upon due process, as hereinafter ordained, shall be divested of office, immunities, chattels, and estates, and consigned, where the enormity of the offense doth warrant, to perpetual incarceration, the same without hope of remission, parole, or indulgence, save by assent of three-fourths of the legislatures of the several States, acting each upon two readings in full assembly.

Clause IX  That concealment, destruction, or falsification of any record, ledger, cipher, or correspondence material to the inquest into such treasons as are hereinbefore set forth, when committed by the accused or at his procurement, shall be taken for plenary proof of consciousness of guilt, and shall be held to aggravate the sentence thereunto annexed; and the writ of privilege, whether executive, attorney-client, or other, shall not be pled to shield such artifices from the judgment of the tribunal, forasmuch as the same would defeat the ends of justice and the preservation of the polity.

Clause X  That every bond, recognizance, or pledge of amity entered into betwixt the magistrate and a foreign potentate or his agents, when not ratified by the Senate in open session and enrolled upon the public journals, shall be null, void, and of none effect; and if it be found that the magistrate hath, for private advantage or to the detriment of the Republic, kept such dealings in occultation, the act of occultation shall be adjudged a high crime, tantamount in its nature to giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and shall work a forfeiture of all rights, dignities, and immunities appertaining to his station.

Clause XI  That any instrument of clemency, whether pardon, commutation, or reprieve, granted to a co-conspirator, confederate, or other person bearing knowledge of the magistrate’s malefactions, being granted with design to suppress testimony, obstruct inquiry, or procure silence, shall be ipso facto void; and the granting thereof shall itself be taken as an overt act of obstruction and subversion, punishable by the same pains and penalties as the principal offense, lest the very font of law be turned to the fount of lawlessness.

Clause XII  That where it shall be discerned, whether by the deposition of credible witnesses, the intercept of encrypted missives, the examination of ledgers foreign or domestic, or the sworn confession of accomplices in pari delicto, that the Magistrate hath, directly or by oblique contrivance, procured from a Power inimical to the United States any pecuniary boon, conveyance of land, remission of debt, or endowment of title, and hath thereupon, in consideration thereof, abrogated, delayed, or mollified the execution of sanctions, embargos, or other acts duly enacted for the chastisement of such Power, the same shall be taken as conclusive evidence of treachery quoad hoc, and shall, upon verdict of guilt, work a perpetual escheat of the offender’s goods and chattels to the Treasury of the Union, in addition to such corporal pains as the tribunal, acting within its high prerogative, shall decree in terrorem for the discouragement of like malefaction.

Clause XIII  That if any person, standing in the trust of the Executive, shall, through neglect supine or malice prepense, suffer the armories, dockyards, codes, or communications of the Republic to fall into the knowledge, possession, or control of a foreign potentate, whether by overt transmission, insecure custody, or wilful failure to act against a manifest breach, such delinquency shall be construed as aid and comfort given, and the delinquent shall be adjudged guilty of high treason, notwithstanding that no formal declaration of war hath been issued, for the law of allegiance admitteth not of such nicety when the safety of the Commonwealth hangeth by a thread.

Clause XIV That any harborage, succor, or concealment afforded, by act or omission, to emissaries, cut-outs, agents provocateurs, or other instruments of a hostile State, being done by one invested with the Executive charge, shall be deemed a species of praemunire, whereby the offender, setting up the interest of a foreign jurisdiction above that of the United States, doth incur perpetual disqualification from the holding of any office temporal or honorific within the gift of the People, together with confinement in perpetuum if the hazard to the Republic be adjudged mortal; and in such cause, no plea of ignorance, misadventure, or misplaced charity shall stand in avoidance.

Clause XV  That whensoever the Chief Magistrate, under colour of executing the laws, shall employ the forces, inquisitors, or writs of the United States to oppress, harry, or abridge the lawful liberties of his political adversaries, or to exempt his confederates from the due course of justice, the act shall be held ultra vires and void, and the Magistrate attainted in the court of public law; and the sentence for such abuse, being an inversion of the trust reposed, may extend to life internment, civic death, and the obliteration of all commemorations, likenesses, and public honours theretofore granted, so that his memory stand as a perpetual admonition.

Clause XVI  That where, by artifices of false tally, coercion of electors, dissemination of forgeries, or any other device contra bonos mores, the Magistrate doth seek to corrupt the suffrage of the People or the certification thereof, it shall be taken not as mere misfeasance but as an assault upon the very fount of sovereignty, and the penalty thereunto annexed shall be capital in all but name, to wit, confinement until the natural term be exhausted, labour without recompense in service of the Union’s weal, and interdiction of all posterity from inheritance of his goods or chattels tainted by the crime.

Clause XVII  That the probative weight of circumstantial concatenations, such as the synchrony of policy shift with foreign emolument, the concurrence of adverse intelligence with favourable utterance toward the enemy, or the sudden dismissal of officers engaged in adversary inquiry, shall suffice, when taken together and not reasonably refuted, to meet the burden of proof herein; and no artifice of delay, demurrer, or procedural chicane shall avail to defer the judgment beyond ninety days from the filing of charges, lest justice be strangled in the crib.

Clause XVIII That if it be discovered, by inquest civil or martial, that the Magistrate hath entered, whether in express covenant or tacit understanding, into any correspondence, negotiation, compact, or other parley with envoys, counsellors, or clandestine agents of a State adjudged adverse to these United States, for the purpose, intent, or probable effect of subverting the determinations of Congress, evading the lawful decrees of the judiciary, or frustrating the ordinances of the several States in the execution of their reserved powers, then shall such Magistrate be held, ab initio, to have forfeited the mantle of trust, and the Governors of no fewer than two-thirds of the States, acting in concert, shall be empowered, proprio vigore and without sufferance of delay, to suspend all faculties and prerogatives of said Magistrate, such suspension to be enrolled ad perpetuam rei memoriam in the annals of the Union.

Clause XIX  That where the Magistrate, being duly forewarned by his councils civil or military, persisteth in conduct calculated to enfeeble the alliances, treaties, and federations upon which the common defence dependeth, whether by withdrawing succour from confederates in the field, traducing their cause in the public forum, or trafficking with their adversaries in secret conclave, such contumacy shall be adjudged an offense contra pacem et dignitatem Populi Americani, and the sentence may include, besides perpetual seclusion of the offender’s person, the proscription of his name from all writs, charters, and commissions henceforth issued under the seal of the United States, to the end that he be made civilly dead in perpetuum.

Clause XX  That any suppression, alteration, or excision of intelligence reports, advisory memoranda, or warnings of hostile intent, when committed with design to shield a foreign adversary from the lawful wrath of the Republic, shall be construed as an act of felo de se against the sovereignty of these United States; and in such case, the court of impeachment or other tribunal convened may, upon proof beyond peradventure, decree the attainder of the offender’s civic rights, the sequestration of his estate to the relief of veterans and widows of the Union, and his internment in such place of rigorous confinement as the Congress or the States in assembly shall prescribe.

Clause XXI  That no invocation of national security, executive secrecy, or privilege of deliberation shall be pled in bar to the disclosure, before a competent tribunal, of any ledger, bond, minute, memorandum, cipher, or other instrument whereby it may appear that the Magistrate hath accepted, solicited, or been promised advantage from a hostile potentate; for the maxim is immutable that no cloak of office shall be drawn over the shoulders of treachery, and the very attempt so to employ it shall aggravate the penalty, as tending to multiply the mischief and to embolden future betrayers of the Republic.

Clause XXII  That the want of direct evidence shall not, in the gravest causes of allegiance betrayed, operate to the prejudice of justice, where the concatenation of acts, omissions, and circumstances doth, by its natural and probable inference, declare a unity of design toward the adversary’s benefit; and the tribunal shall have power, non obstante any contrary usage in lesser causes, to receive as conclusive such chain of inference when corroborated by the concordant testimony of two or more witnesses, even though each have observed different overt acts in the same general conspiracy.

Clause XXIII  That if the Magistrate, or any high officer within the Executive, shall, by threat, blandishment, or offer of preferment, induce any subordinate, legislator, or magistrate of the States to desist from, delay, or pervert the execution of lawful inquiries into the dealings of said Magistrate with foreign adversaries, the very act of solicitation shall be taken as proof of consciousness of guilt, and the penalty thereunto annexed shall be doubled in severity, to the end that future holders of the Executive charge may learn that no artifice of intimidation or seduction shall avail them in the hour of reckoning.

Clause XXIV  That should the Magistrate, under colour of treaty-making or the plenary power of recognition, acknowledge, give countenance unto, or otherwise legitimize a regime proscribed by act of Congress or adjudged hostile by resolution of the States in convocation, without the concurrent assent of two-thirds of the several State legislatures, such act shall be ipso jure null and void, and the attempt thereof punishable as a praemunire against the sovereignty of the People, with penalties to include sequestration of estates, civic death, and perpetual banishment from the precincts of government.

Clause XXV  That the concealment, suppression, or deliberate mischaracterization of hostile intelligence, whether for the purpose of forestalling defensive measures or for sparing the repute of the foreign source, being an affront to the maxim salus populi suprema lex esto, shall be adjudged a capital offense in the civil sense, warranting lifelong restraint of the person and forfeiture in perpetuum of all dignities and emoluments derived from the public trust.

Clause XXVI  That no remission, commutation, or other exercise of clemency shall be valid where granted to one adjudged or credibly accused of conspiring with the Magistrate in treasons hereinbefore enumerated, save only by unanimous consent of the legislatures of all the States, acting each in solemn conclave; and the issuance of any such clemency without said consent shall constitute, of itself, an overt act of obstruction, to be punished with the same rigour as the principal treason.

Clause XXVII  That where the Magistrate hath, by gift, endowment, or promise thereof, bound himself to the pecuniary or political interest of a foreign power, the very existence of such bond, whether executed or merely covenanted, shall be deemed prima facie proof of divided allegiance, and the burden shall lie wholly upon the Magistrate to disprove such corruption; failing which, he shall be removed with dispatch, his property escheating to the Union, and his name struck from all rolls of honour and pension.

Clause XXVIII  That any attempt, whether by alteration of electoral boundaries, suppression of lawful voters, fabrication of returns, or intimidation of officers, to subvert the electoral process in order to secure continuance in office for the benefit of an adversary’s policy, shall be taken as an usurpation contra formam constitutionis, and the usurper shall, upon conviction, be held incapable of holding any office of trust or profit for the term of his natural life, and may be subjected to confinement in such place of labour as the tribunal shall appoint.

Clause XXIX  That no plea of necessity, emergency, or public tranquillity shall suffice to justify the suspension, delay, or obstruction of an inquiry duly commenced by the States into the foreign entanglements of the Executive; for the very object of such inquiry is to determine whether the emergency hath been brought about by the malefactions of the very officer claiming its shelter.

Clause XXX  That the procurement of foreign propaganda, disinformation, or other artifices of persuasion, for the purpose of misleading the People or discrediting the lawful authorities of the States, being a fraud upon the body politic, shall be punished as sedition aggravated by treachery, and the offender subjected to total forfeiture of office, goods, and liberty.

Clause XXXI  That if, by the sufferance or connivance of the Magistrate, the armed forces or intelligence instruments of the United States be used to surveil, harass, or impede the officers of the several States in the performance of their lawful duties to investigate foreign corruption, such act shall be deemed a levying of war against the States, and the penalty shall be as for treason in the highest degree.

Clause XXXII  That any alliance, entente, memorandum, or compact made between the Magistrate and a foreign power, not entered into the public record and ratified as the Constitution doth prescribe, shall be void, and the concealment thereof shall itself be an indictable treason.

Clause XXXIII  That whensoever the States, by a concurring vote of three-fourths of their legislatures, shall determine that the Magistrate hath become an agent or instrumentality of a foreign power, their declaration shall have the force of an act of removal, and the officer so declared shall at once be divested of all powers, titles, and emoluments, without further act of Congress.

Clause XXXIV  That the law of allegiance, being of so high and sacred a nature, admitteth not the excuse of ignorance, misapprehension, or misplaced loyalty to a person; and the Magistrate shall be held to the highest standard of vigilance in avoiding even the appearance of foreign entanglement, the breach whereof shall be deemed conclusive of his unfitness.

Clause XXXV  That the impeachment, removal, or disqualification herein provided shall not be stayed, delayed, or abrogated by dissolution of Congress, prorogation of any assembly, or expiration of any term, but shall proceed until judgment final, the sovereignty of the People admitting no intermission in the defence of their liberty.

Clause XXXVI  That upon final judgment of guilt under any clause herein, the offender’s likeness, seal, and escutcheon shall be struck from all public buildings, coin, currency, and documents, lest posterity be tempted to honour the memory of one who betrayed the Republic.

Clause XXXVII  That the Congress shall have power, and where Congress faileth the States shall have concurrent power, to prescribe the forms, procedures, and evidentiary standards by which trials under this Amendment shall be conducted, provided always that such standards be strict enough to secure justice yet not so onerous as to shield the guilty from conviction.

Clause XXXVIII  That any person aiding, abetting, counselling, or concealing the malefactions of the Magistrate in respect of foreign adversaries shall be liable to the same penalties, disabilities, and forfeitures as the principal offender, without regard to official position or prior service.

Clause XXXIX  That no statute of limitation shall run against offenses enumerated herein, for the injury done to the Republic by treachery is of a nature that doth not diminish with the passage of time.

Clause XL  That this Amendment, being enacted for the preservation of the Union and the vindication of its sovereignty against the corruption of its chief officers, shall be held superior to all inconsistent statutes, treaties, or executive orders, and no court, officer, or authority shall construe it otherwise than in favour of the States’ power to remove, punish, and disable the traitorous, the corrupted, and the servile to foreign thrones.