Does Section 3 of the 14th Amendment disqualify Trump?

Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits anyone who has previously taken an oath of office (that is, most current and former public officials) from holding public office if they have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States. That raises the question of whether any of the persons who took part in unlawful efforts to block the transition of presidential office in January 2021—and if so, which ones—might be barred from future office. It also raises the question of who decides on the disqualification: the state officials who list candidates’ names on the ballot? Other officials charged with gatekeeping, such as legislative bodies in charge of accepting member credentials? Or only the courts? And if so, can they weigh the evidence on their own, or do they need to wait until there has been some previous kind of ruling that the former official engaged in insurrection?

In a social media exchange last year, I was incautiously dismissive of attempts to disqualify candidates on this ground, saying most of them struck me as “performative long‐shot complaints that stand little chance of success, and zero chance if based merely on bad talk.”