JOSH BLACKMAN & SETH BARRETT TILLMAN: If Donald Trump is Convicted of Violating 18 U.S.C. § 2383, Will He Be Disqualified From Serving As President? “We’ve written that the phrase ‘office . . . under the United States’ refers to appointed positions in the Executive and Judicial Branches, and also includes appointed positions in the Legislative Branch. This phrase does not extend to elected federal positions, i.e., the President, Vice President, and members of Congress. . . . Congress can add statutory qualifications for appointed positions. In other words, Congress can add statutory qualifications to the positions it creates (i.e., appointed federal positions), but Congress cannot add qualifications to positions created by the Constitution (i.e., elected federal positions).”

“Our position here was not created in the wake of January 6, 2021. In 2016, Tillman publicized a similar analysis in regard to a hypothetical conviction of Secretary Clinton under 18 U.S.C. § 2071, the Federal Records Act.”