Military On Alert Over Trumps Martial Law Threat: The Craziness Is Unprecedented
According to a new report, ranking officers have discussed what they would do if the president declared martial law.
President Donald Trump has filed lawsuits after losing the 2020 presidential election and refuses to acknowledge the defeat. A new report claims military leaders have discussed their plan of action if POTUS were to declare martial law toward the last days of his term.
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According to theWashington Post, national security and election law experts assert Trump cannot declare martial law, however are alarmed by the possibility.
This is really dangerous stuff to start playing with, Rachel Kleinfeld, a national security expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told the Post. You cannot normalize extrajudicial action outside the rule of law and believe democracy will hold. Democracies are fragile, even ours.
If you have martial law, Kleinfeld continued. You have total suspension of the Constitution. So thats a coup, and a coup in this country is not going to happen.
Although experts do not believe the unprecedented move is possible, a report claims the military is still preparing for the unknown. According to a Newsweek exclusive story, the Pentagon is on red alert and ranking officers have discussed what they would do if the president decided to declare martial law. One officer anonymously detailed the nature of the planning.
Trump Held White House Meeting On Martial Law Plan To Overturn Election
President Donald Trump and his top aides reviewed a series of proposals for overturning his defeat in the presidential election at a meeting Friday night in the White House. This included discussion of a proposal that he declare martial law and order the seizure of voting machines in key battleground states, according to numerous press accounts.
The New York Times first reported on the meeting, which involved Trump, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and two prominent advocates of an election coup, former Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell and former Trump national security advisor Gen. Michael Flynn. Additional details were reported by CNN, ABC, NBC and other news outlets.
It was the first meeting at the White House for Flynn since Trump pardoned him on two counts of perjury for lying to the FBI during the investigation, in the early days of the Trump administration, that led to his firing as national security advisor. It was the first White House visit for Powell since she was dismissed by the Trump campaign after voicing a series of bizarre conspiracy theories in which Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was held responsible for manipulating the 2020 US presidential election.
On Sunday, as details of the meeting and the illegal and unconstitutional proposals that were discussed became more widely known, Trump went on his Twitter account to denounce the press reports as Fake News.
What Is Martial Law
The term martial law has no established definition but usually describes a power that, in an emergency, allows the military to push aside civilian authorities and exercise jurisdiction over the population of a particular area, according to the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice.
The federal government most recently declared martial law in 1941, when it did so in Hawaii after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. A state government most recently declared martial law in 1963, when then-Maryland Governor J. Millard Tawes imposed martial law on the city of Cambridge, Md., in response to conflicts between segregationists and racial justice advocates.
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When Has The Insurrection Act Been Invoked
The Insurrection Act has been invoked throughout U.S. history for a variety of purposes.
Abraham Lincoln invoked it in Southern states during the Civil War. Dwight Eisenhower used it to protect Black students desegregating a school in Little Rock, Arkansas. And Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to break up riots in U.S. cities in the late 1960s.
Hoffmeister said some of its most powerful uses have been to enforce desegregation laws in the South. According to Banks, Bush received criticism after he invoked it in California in the 1990s.
The potential for Trump’s invocation of the act also came up amid the unrest last summer during racial justice protests. Trump never invoked it, though. Then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he opposed using the U.S. military to quiet the domestic unrest after Trump had threatened to deploy federal troops to “dominate the streets.”
Contributing: William Cummings and John Bacon
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General Mike Flynn Tells Trump To Impose Martial Law To Force New Elections In Battleground States
- 13:55 ET, Dec 18 2020
- Invalid Date,
GENERAL Michael Flynn has called upon President Trump to impose martial law to force new elections in battleground states.
The former national security adviser asked Donald Trump to use the military to force an election “rerun” in key states lost to Biden.
Flynn, who was recently pardoned by Trump after he pled guilty to lying to the FBI during the Russia investigation in 2017, made an impassioned case to invoke martial law and deploy the military in a bid to prevent President-elect Joe Biden from taking office.
“There is no way in the world we are going to be able to move forward as a nation. could immediately, on his order, seize every single one of these machines,” Flynn said during an interview with Newsmax on Thursday in an apparent reference to the far-right conspiracy theory that voting software was rigged to skew Trump votes in favor of Biden.
“Within the swing states, if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities, and he could place those in states and basically rerun an election in each of those states.
“I mean, it’s not unprecedented. These people are out there talking about martial law like it’s something that we’ve never done. Martial law has been instituted 64 times.”
“We have a constitutional process. We clearly have a constitutional process. That has to be followed.”
Importantly, declaring martial law does not suspend the U.S. Constitution and the military is unable to administer elections.
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Lin Wood Explains Plan For Trump To Enact Martial Law: ‘our Military Could Do It’
Election attorney Lin Wood on Sunday praised the idea that President Donald Trump could declare “martial law” in an effort to remain in office.
During an interview that was broadcast on NTP, a conservative YouTube channel, Wood was asked if martial law could prevent President-elect Joe Biden from being sworn in as the next president.
“I think Trump will Trump them all,” Wood proclaimed. “He’s also got the option of martial law. It’s been used 68 times. Lincoln had to do it to save the country. Maybe President Trump will have to do it.”
Wood explained that Trump could impose military rule on a “limited basis.”
“I’ve advocated the idea,” he continued. “Go into these seven states, seize the machines, have them tested, have the paper ballots tested. In a matter of days, our military could do it and we trust our military and we’d have the answer.”
What Is The Insurrection Act
The Insurrection Act gives the president authority to call on military and National Guard forces to suppress an insurrection if a state requests it, if there is an insurrection that makes it impossible to enforce federal law, or if there is an insurrection or domestic violence that deprives others of their Constitutional rights.
The Act also requires the president to issue a proclamation demanding those participating in the insurrection disperse.
William Banks, a Syracuse University College of Law Board of Advisors Distinguished Professor, said that when thinking about the Insurrection Act, it’s important to remember one of the most basic principles of the United States’ founding: that the military not be involved in civilian affairs.
“The Insurrection Act lays into U.S. law an exception to that background principle,” Banks said.
In most cases, a state would want to rely on National Guard troops in situations of unrest. The Insurrection Act is generally reserved for when “things are really bad,” Banks said.
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Trump Raised The Idea Of Imposing Martial Law To Overturn The Election In A White House Meeting According To Reports
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President Donald Trump, in a White House meeting Friday, weighed the idea of imposing martial law to overturn the election result, reported The New York Times and Axios.
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The idea was first touted by Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security advisor, who was reportedly present in the meeting.
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In a CNN interview, John Bolton, a former national security advisor to Trump, described the suggestion as “appalling” and “unprecedented.”
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Trump dismissed the reports as ‘fake news.”
President Donald Trump, in a White House meeting, raised the possibility of imposing martial law in a bid to overturn the result of the presidential election, according to reports Saturday.
In a raucous meeting Friday with top aides about his ongoing attempts to overturn the election, Trump was joined by General Michael Flynn, his former national security advisor, reported The New York Times.
A few days earlier on the conservative Newsmax network, Flynn had called for the president to impose martial law, and “rerun an election” in swing states that he lost to President-elect Joe Biden in November.
In the meeting, according to the Times, Trump asked about the idea.
In a tweet Saturday, Trump responded to the reports, dismissing them as “fake news.”
Donald J. Trump
Donald Trump Should Declare Martial Law Michael Flynn Retweeted From His Now
In this daily series, Newsweek explores the steps that led to the .
“Freedom never kneels except for God,” retired Michael Flynn tweeted on sharing an advertisement from the We the People Convention, an Ohio activist group.
In the ad, the Convention asks President Donald Trump “to exercise the Extraordinary Powers of his office and declare limited Martial Law to temporarily suspend the Constitution and civilian control of these federal elections in order to have the military implement a national re-vote that reflects the true will of the people.”
Trump had granted a full pardon to Michael Flynn, his first national security advisor, just eight days earlier. Flynn had already joined the Trump campaign and its most vociferous lawyerSidney Powellin promoting the wildest conspiracy theories about a stolen election. And though his December 2 tweet was a retweet, and Flynn never explicitly mentioned martial law, behind the scenes the retired Army general and former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency pushed Trump campaign lawyers and the president himself to use the military to intervene in the results of the vote.
Flynn, in a later Newsmax interview, said that Donald Trump had “options” to maintain the integrity of the election. “The president has to plan for every eventuality because we cannot allow this election and the integrity of our election to go the way it is,” Flynn said.
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What Happens When Civil Law Falls Apart
“The basic idea is that when civil law can’t function, the military has to come in as expedient, to maintain order,”Geoffrey Corn, a professor at South Texas College of Law Houston and a former Army officer, explained via email in March.
If civil authorities can keep order, then the invocation of martial law would be invalid, and lots of constitutional rights would be violated, Corn said. “For example, if a military commander ordered confiscation of resources that would be a due process violation, because you would have been deprived of property without due process. An arrest similarly would violate the Fourth Amendment.”
It’s hard to say what nationwide martial law would look like in the U.S. today, because it’s not something that’s happened in a long, long time. One instance was in 1941. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Gov. Joseph B. Poindexter, with the approval of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, ordered the imposition of martial law in Hawaii, which was still a territory, so that the military would have a free hand in fortifying island of Oahu against a feared Japanese invasion. Additionally, FDR may have feared a revolt by Hawaii’s 150,000 Japanese Americans, who amounted to 35 percent of the population, according to this 2017 Stars and Stripes article.
Trump Makes Big Announcement About Martial Law
On Sunday, President Donald Trump put the rumors to rest that he would declare martial law.
Martial law = Fake News. Just more knowingly bad reporting!
Donald J. Trump
Trump has waged an unprecedented effort to fight back against the results of the Nov. 3 election.
Although the Electoral College has declared presumptive President-elect Joe Biden the winner of the Nov. 3 presidential election, the Trump campaign has insisted that there has been voter fraud in states that include Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin, as well as Pennsylvania.
Despite multiple anecdotal claims of voting irregularities, proof has yet to surface that there was a widespread effort to distort the voting process in such a way that would have impacted the final results of the presidential election. Numerous affidavits testifying to various types of election fraud have been filed in courts in several swing states.
These affidavits indicate that those who witnessed conduct believe that fraud took place but those allegations have yet to be proven through either the courts or law enforcement.
In the emotional frenzy of the times, the extreme of martial law has been discussed.
For example, on Thursday, retired Gen. Michael Flynn spoke of using the military to oversee a new election and encouraged Trump to consider .
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“I dont know on those things,” Greene continued in her exchange with Meadows. “I just wanted you to tell him. They stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next. Please tell him to declassify as much as possible so we can go after Biden and anyone else!”
Last Friday, Green became the first member of Congress to publicly testify under oath about the events surrounding the Capitol attack. When asked specifically about martial law and whether or not she discussed the idea of using it to keep Trump in power with either the former president, his chief of staff, or anyone else in the administration, Greene repeatedly said, “I don’t recall.”
Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn was one of the first to advocate for martial law. The Jan. 6 committee subpoenaed Flynn in November, requesting documents and testimony in reference to a Dec. 18, 2020. meeting he reportedly attended with Trump in the Oval Office, where seizing voting machines used in the 2020 election was discussed.
One day before meeting with Trump, Flynn told the conservative news outlet Newsmax that Trump “could take military capabilities and he could place them in those states and basically rerun an election in each of those states.”
Trump denied reports he was considering attempting to impose martial law, tweeting “Martial law = Fake News.”
Mike Lindell Photographed With Documents Floating Using Insurrection Act Later Says He Believes He Has Proof China Helped Steal The 2020 Election
Republican donor and pillow salesman Mike Lindell, an ally of outgoing US President Donald Trump who has pushed baseless accusations of fraud in the 2020 election, was photographed at the White House Friday with documents floating the possibility of declaring martial law in the final days of Trumps presidency.
Zoomed in photos of a document held in Lindells hand as he visited the West Wing showed text fragments that included the words BE TAKEN IMMEDIATELY TO SAVE THETHE CONSTITUTION, as well as Insurrection Act now as a result of the assault on the and martial law if necessary upon the first hint of any
Lindell later told the Daily Beast he had presented the president with documents he believed proved China and other countries had helped steal the election.
He said Trump had told him to show his documents to attorneys, who rejected the claims but also said they would look into it.
CEO Michael Lindell shows off his notes before going into the West Wing at the White House on Friday, Jan 15, 2021 in Washington, DC.
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Jabin Botsford
Lindell has no credentials beyond being the owner of the My Pillow brand. On Friday he posted on Facebook: Keep the faith everyone! We will have our president Donald Trump 4 more years!
Meanwhile, Trump is expected to leave Washington Wednesday morning just before Bidens inauguration to begin his post-presidential life in Florida.
Thank you,
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Beware Of Trump Declaring Martial Law
He discussed doing it last week. It raises long-term questions about presidential power.
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Donald Trump. Photo from whitehouse.gov.
History will record that on Friday, Dec. 18, Donald Trump held a discussion in the Oval Office about imposing martial law.
This will leave the ultimate stain on Trumps reputation, along with the blood of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who died of COVID due to his negligence and narcissism.
To even consider imposing martial law should be anathema to anyone who respects democracy and is sworn to uphold the Constitution.
And to consider it for the sole and selfish purpose of holding on to power marks a new low, one that even Richard Nixon didnt stoop to.
And lets remember, Trump did this after his defeat was upheld in every state court and every federal court, including the U.S. Supreme Court.
Outrageous as it is, Trumps consideration of martial law hasnt received the attention and denunciation it deserves and demands.
Republican officials again have remained cravenly quiet.
And with the exception of CNN, most of the media have given it only faint coverage.
Thats a huge mistake.
When democracy is under all-out threat, minimizing the risk is a dangerous course of action.
But the very idea that he is considering doing this should put all of us on our guard.
In all likelihood , Trump will be gone on Jan. 20.
