Weld, Wm Gov

apostate, never? trump

got 10% NH? agw?

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an 2 24

During Wednesday's episode of MSNBC's The ReidOut, a former Republican governor laid out his reasons for filing a brief — along with two other ex-GOP governors — in support of disqualifying Donald Trump from office under the 14th Amendment.

"Three former Republican elected officials stand out in a party that is otherwise completely submissive to Trump — joining the ranks of those arguing to the Supreme Court that he is disqualified to appear on the ballot because he engaged in insurrection," host Joy Reid said. "They are former Massachusetts Governor William Weld, former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, and former Montana Governor Marc Racicot."

She continued, "The filing notes that the three governors have been members of the Republican party for decades. Their objectives in filing this brief are not partisan but purely patriotic, motivated by their commitment to public service. The governors argue, 'Should Mr. Trump be permitted to stand again for election to the presidency, despite his past actions, neither section 3 of the 14th amendment ,nor the oaths that undergird the bedrock premise that public officials serve to advance the welfare of the people and our common national project will ever be the same. They will have been rendered meaningless in their legal force and stripped of their moral authority and power. They will, in effect, have been written out of our Constitution."

Reid then began her phone interview with ex-Governor Racicot. "Tell me why you felt compelled to weigh in on this Supreme Court involving Donald Trump," she said.

Racicot replied, "Well, because it's a serious violation of the Constitution to ignore it. And the fact of the matter is that nobody has a right to run for office. We certainly have a right to vote, if we qualify and haven't disabled ourselves from being able to vote. But we don't have a right to run. In order to run, the person that is the candidate has to prove that, in fact, they can meet the qualifications. So you don't get access to the ballot unless you meet the qualifications. The qualifications have been there from the beginning of the Constitution 235 years ago. You have to be 35 years of age. You have to be native born, and have to have been resident of the country for the past 14 years."

The former governor emphasized, "Then there's a fourth requirement that you have to meet in order to be eligible. And that is, you cannot have taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and thereafter involve, engage, incite, or in any other way, be involved with an insurrection against the United States of America, and against the Constitution. So, simply, as you said in your introduction, it cannot be ignored. It can't be waived. It's not an option. This is something that is mandatory. And the burden is on Mr. Trump to prove that, in fact, he meets the qualifications. And there is evidence from two courts — a district court in Colorado, and the United States Supreme Court, plus the Secretary of State in the state of Maine that have all held after a due process hearing that, in fact, Mr. Trump was involved in an insurrection. And as a consequence, he is therefore ineligible to run for president. So, we want to see faith be paid to the Constitution, that's the bottom line.

Watch the video below or at this link.

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Rival Republican Bill Weld accuses Trump of ‘treason — pure and simple’

Alex Henderson

Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld is one of the three Republicans challenging President Donald Trump via a 2020 GOP presidential primary.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/trump-might-actually-get-a-serious-challenger-from-the-right-wing/

weld chafee and sanford app trail

wiki

William Floyd "Bill" Weld (born July 31, 1945) is an American attorney, businessman, and Libertarian politician who served as the 68th Governor of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1997. He is the Libertarian Party's nominee for Vice President of the United States in the 2016 election.^[1]

A libertarian Republican,^[2] Weld served as the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts from 1981 to 1986 and as the head of the Department of Justice Criminal Division from 1986 to 1988.

He was elected Governor of Massachusetts in 1990 and served as Governor from 1991 to 1997. He was re-elected by the largest margin in Massachusetts' history in 1994 and was the Republican nominee for the United States Senate in 1996, losing to incumbent Democrat John Kerry. He resigned as governor in 1997 to focus on his nomination by President Bill Clinton to serve as United States Ambassador to Mexico, but because of opposition by the social conservative Senate Foreign Relations committee Chairman Jesse Helms, he was denied a hearing before the Foreign Relations committee and withdrew his nomination.

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Background

Main article: Weld family

Weld was born in Smithtown, New York. His ancestor Edmund Weld was among the earliest students (Class of 1650) atHarvard College. He would be followed by eighteen more Welds at Harvard, where two buildings are named for the family.General Stephen Minot Weld Jr. fought with distinction in many major battles of the Civil War.^[3][4]

William Weld has a sense of humor about his background; when Massachusetts Senate president Billy Bulger publicly teased him about his all-American heritage and wealth, pointing out that his ancestors had come over on the Mayflower, Weld rose on the dais with a correction: "Actually, they weren't on the Mayflower. They sent the servants over first to get the cottage ready."^[5]

Weld's father David (1911–1972) was an investment banker; his mother, Mary Nichols Weld (1913–1986), was a descendant of William Floyd, who was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. His siblings are Dr. Francis "Tim" Weld, David Weld (d. 2005), and Anne (m. Collins). His maternal grandfather was ichthyologist and ornithologist John Treadwell Nichols, and his first cousin is novelist John Nichols.^[6]

Weld was educated at Middlesex School. He graduated with an A.B. Summa Cum Laude in economics from Harvard College in 1966, studied economics at University College, Oxford, and graduated with a J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1970.^[7]

Early career

Weld began his legal career as a counsel with the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate impeachment inquiry, where one of his colleagues was Hillary Rodham. In 1978, he ran unsuccessfully for Massachusetts Attorney General, losing to Democratic incumbent Francis X. Bellotti by 1,532,835 votes (78.4%) to 421,417 (21.6%).

Following his appointment as United States Attorney for Massachusetts in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan, Weld expanded an ongoing public corruption investigation of the administration of Boston Mayor Kevin White. More than 20 city employees were indicted, pleaded guilty, or were convicted of a range of charges, including several key political supporters of the Mayor. He served for five years as United States Attorney.

Political career

U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts

In 1981, William Weld was recommended to President Reagan by Rudolph W. Giuliani, then Associate U.S. Attorney General, for appointment as the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts. During Weld's tenure, the Attorney General's office prosecuted some of New England's largest banks in cases involving money laundering and otherwhite-collar crimes. In 1985, the Boston Globe said Weld "has been by far the most visible figure in the prosecution of financial institutions."

Weld gained national recognition in fighting public corruption: he won 109 convictions out of 111 cases.

In 1983, the Boston Globe stated: "The U.S. Attorney's office has not lost a single political corruption case since Weld took over, an achievement believed to be unparalleled in the various federal jurisdictions."

Promotion to Justice Department

In 1986, President Reagan promoted Weld to head of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department in Washington, where Weld oversaw 700 employees. Weld was responsible for supervising all federal prosecutions, including those investigated by the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration, as well as the work of the 93 U.S. Attorneys (who by then included Rudy Giuliani in Manhattan). During this time, Weld worked on some of the Reagan administration's most significant prosecutions and investigations, including the capture of Panama's Manuel Noriega on drug trafficking charges.

In March 1988, Weld resigned from the Justice Department, together with United States Deputy Attorney General Arnold Burns and four aides, in protest of improper conduct by U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese.^[8] In July 1988, Weld and Burns jointly testified before Congress in favor of a potential prosecution of Meese for his personal financial conduct, following a report by a special prosecutor investigating Meese.^[8] Meese resigned from office in July 1988 shortly after Weld's and Burns' testimony.^[8]

Governor of Massachusetts

Main articles: Massachusetts gubernatorial election, 1990 and Massachusetts gubernatorial election, 1994

The business community reacted strongly to Weld's leadership. In a 1994 survey of chief executives conducted by the Massachusetts High Technology Council, 83% of those polled rated the state's business climate as good or excellent—up from only 33% at the beginning of his term. Proponents might claim that Weld's leadership changed the minds of 50% of the CEOs surveyed while others would note the national economic trends or other factors might play a part. Weld also reaped the benefits of the 1990s prosperity, as the state's unemployment rate fell by more than 3 percentage points during his first term, from 9.6% in 1991 to 6.4% in 1994. As a result, Weld received grades of A in 1992,^[15][16] B in 1994,^[17][18]and B in 1996^[19][20] from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, in their biennial Fiscal Policy Report Card on America's Governors. In 1993 he supported adoption of a gun control bill in Massachusetts that included limits on gun purchases under age 21, as well as prohibiting certain types of weapons, which was not ultimately passed.^[21] He has since renounced this proposal.^[22] During his term, he launched a successful effort to privatize many state's human services, laying off thousands of state employees.^[23][24] After cutting state spending year-over-year for his first two years, the Republican Party lost its ability to sustain a veto in the legislature due to losses in the Massachusetts State Senate, forcing Weld to make greater concessions to Democratic legislators.^[25]

In the general election, he faced John Silber, the president of Boston University. Polls showed Weld anywhere from a statistical tie to trailing by as many as ten points.^[13] Voter dissatisfaction with the state's Democratic majority gave Weld support for his promises to reduce the state deficit, lower the unemployment rate, and cut taxes.^[14] On November 6, 1990, he was elected as the 68th Governor of Massachusetts by a 50–47 margin, to become the first Republican governor of Massachusetts since Francis W. Sargent left office in 1975.In 1990, Weld announced his candidacy for Governor of Massachusetts, to replace the out-going Michael Dukakis.^[9]Although Republicans made up under 14% of the Massachusetts electorate and a Republican had not won the gubernatorial election since 1970, Weld's liberal stances on social issues made him a viable candidate for office in the heavily Democratic state.^[10] At the state Republican convention, party officials backed Steven Pierce over Weld, and initial polling had Pierce ahead by 25 percentage points.^[11] Weld gained enough support to force a primary, and in an upset election, Weld won the Republican nomination over Pierce by a 60–40 margin.^[12]

In 1994, Weld won reelection with an impressive 71% of the vote in the most one-sided gubernatorial contest in Massachusetts electoral history. Weld carried all but five towns in the whole state, even carrying Boston.

...

Weld was a principal at Leeds, Weld & Co., which describes itself as the United States's largest private equity fund focused on investing in the education and training industry. Weld co-chaired the Independent Task Force on North America under the Council on Foreign Relations, which studied the liberalization of markets and free trade between the USA, Canada, and Mexico.

The firm was founded in 1993 by Jeffrey T. Leeds and Robert A. Bernstein and raised its first private equity fund in 1995.^[1]In 2010, the firm established Leeds Global Partners which provides education advisory and implementation services.^[2] A distinguished group of individuals serves on the Advisory Board:^[3]