2020 Dec 29 US. Military PREPPING for MARTIAL LAW and Trumps Election Integrity Options

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NEWSWEEK HEADLINES: Donald Trump’s Martial-Law Talk Has Military on Red Alert

People gather in support of President Donald Trump and in protest the outcome of the 2020 presidential election at freedom plaza on December 12, 2020 in Washington, DC. Violent actions by pro-Trump militia members could give Trump reason to invoke federal control.
TASOS KATOPODIS/GETTY IMAGES

Pentagon and Washington-area military leaders are on red alert, wary of what President Donald Trump might do in his remaining days in office.

Though far-fetched, ranking officers have discussed what they would do if the president declared martial law.

And military commands responsible for Washington DC are engaged in secret contingency planning in case the armed forces are called upon to maintain or restore civil order during the inauguration and transition period.

According to one officer who spoke to Newsweek on condition of anonymity, the planning is being kept out of sight of the White House and Trump loyalists in the Pentagon for fear that it would be shut down.

“I’ve been associated with the military for over 40 years and I’ve never seen the discussions that are being had right now, the need for such discussions,” says a retired flag officer, currently a defense contractor who has mentored and advised his service’s senior leaders. He was granted anonymity in order to speak without fear of reprisal.

A half-dozen officers in similar positions agree that while there is zero chance that the uniformed leadership would involve itself in any scheme to create an election-related reversal, they worry that the military could get sucked into a crisis of Trump’s making, particularly if the president tries to rally private militias and pro-Trump paramilitaries in an effort to disrupt the transition and bring violence to the capital.

“Right now, because of coronavirus,” one retired judge advocate general says, “the president actually has unprecedented emergency powers, ones that might convince him—particularly if he listens to certain of his supporters—that he has unlimited powers and is above the law.”

“But martial law,” says the lawyer, “is the wrong paradigm to think about the dangers ahead.” Though such a presidential proclamation could flow from his order as commander-in-chief, an essential missing ingredient is the martial side: the involvement and connivance of some cabal of officers who would support the president’s illegal move.

Such a group doesn’t exist, he and other experts agree, but there could still be room for mischief, confusion, and even use of military force. It would just not be in the way Trump might intend, particularly if he continues his quest to destabilize the democratic process.

“There is no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of an American election,” Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and Army Chief of Staff General James McConville said in a joint statement last Friday.

Yet while the Pentagon officially responded to Newsweek’s queries with various quotes from defense leaders that the military has no role to play in the outcome of the election, it declined to address post-election crises or the discussions of martial law, referring questions to the White House. The White House then declined to comment.

Similarly, officers who were willing to speak about the subject insisted on anonymity, fearful that use of their names might provoke the ire of the president. They feared that publicly stated opposition to the president’s scheme to undermine the election—whether that is to proclaim martial law, to seize voting machines, or even to halt Congress from ratifying state elector’s results on January 6—could actually embolden Donald Trump to act.

“At this point there’s no telling what the president might do in the next month,” says a former Northern Command (NORTHCOM) commander, one who has been intimately involved in the development of domestic civil planning. “Though I’m confident that the uniformed military leadership has their heads screwed on right, the craziness is unprecedented and the possibilities are endless.” The retired flag officer also requested anonymity because he is actively advising senior officers and is not authorized to speak on the record.

In some ways the military has already gotten dragged into the issue. Retired Lt. General Michael Flynn, President Trump’s first national security advisor and a recently pardoned felon, publicly broached the subject of martial law on the conservative channel Newsmax last week, saying that the president should use the military to seize voting boxes and “rerun” the election in certain states.

“He could take military capabilities and he could … basically rerun an election,” Flynn said. “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’s suggestion has been openly condemned by numerous retired officers. Lt. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, said on MSNBC that Flynn was a “disgrace to his uniform.”

After his television remarks, Flynn was invited to the Oval Office over the weekend, according to The New York Times and CNN, where he repeated his proposal. Since then, top aides have shot down the president’s musings, and military sources point out that none of these discussions have included the Pentagon, and no one in the military supports any use of the armed forces to keep Donald Trump in office.

But officials willing to speak about the martial law discussions, and to speculate about the president’s state of mind, are quick to point out that in March the president said he had “the right to do a lot of things that people don’t even know about.”

That statement came a day before the president declared a COVID-19 national emergency on March 13, a state that continues to this day as specified in three laws—the Public Health Service Act, the Stafford Act, and the National Emergencies Act.

The Public Health Service Act is a 1944 statute that affords the president broad powers to mandate and enforce a nationwide quarantine. The Stafford Act, created mostly for natural disasters, allows the president to move to alleviate a local civil emergency without a request from a governor (that is, when he certifies that the primary responsibility for whatever the emergency is rests with the federal government). There is no aspect of either of these first two statutes that involves the military in any way.

President Barack Obama declared a national emergency with regard to cybersecurity on April 1, 2015, a declaration still in effect. In both the Bush and Obama declarations, the presidents specified what authorities they were granting to government agencies and departments, mostly to redirect funds (and since then, a February 15, 2019 declaration of national emergency has been used by President Trump to divert defense construction dollars to pay for the southern border wall).

Though the National Emergencies Act does not itself provide specific powers—it merely allows the president to implement other statutes—experts worry that Trump and his loyalist supporters might imagine that the Act allows him to invoke extraordinary powers when in fact there is no precedent behind such a move.

And though President Trump himself tweeted “Martial law = Fake News” the day of the New York Times report, officials who have served in the Trump White House say that his reference to “things that people don’t even know about” portends true dangers, as the president indeed does have secret powers and has been fascinated with their existence. Military officers and National Security Council officials with direct knowledge of the early coronavirus deliberations at the White House say Trump was briefed by his national security team on a broad range of extraordinary powers available to him, including secret military plans to suppress civil disturbances in the “National Capital Region” and extraordinary powers contained in Top Secret continuity of government plans, both first revealed in Newsweek.

A separate presidentially-activated code word exists to implement each of some five dozen PEADs—the documents already dispersed amongst various departments and government agencies. Those codes are contained in the same satchel—the so-called “football”—that holds the president’s nuclear authenticators and is carried by military aides who are always with the president. In other words, such orders for extraordinary powers have been regularly briefed to President Trump and are only an arm’s length away.

ORIGINAL SOURCE: Date-stamped: 2020 Dec 24 - Time-stamped: 5:00 AM EST - Author: William M. Arkin - Title: Exclusive: Donald Trump’s Martial-Law Talk Has Military on Red Alert - Article Link 01: newsweek.com

NEWSMAX HEADLINES: Michael Flynn to Newsmax TV: Trump Has Options to Secure Integrity of 2020 Election.

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn says President Donald Trump has options to make sure the integrity of the 2020 election remains intact, including seizing voting machines around the country and using military capabilities to rerun elections in swing states.

”I don’t know if he’s going to take any of these options. 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 Thursday during an appearance on Newsmax TV’s ”Greg Kelly Reports.” 

”This is just totally unsatisfactory. There’s no way in the world we’re going to be able to move forward as a nation with this. …

”He could immediately on his order seize every single one of these machines around the country on his order. He could also order, within the swing states, if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities and he could place them in those states and basically rerun an election in each of those states. It’s not unprecedented,” Flynn added.

The Pentagon earlier this month dismissed nine Defense Business Board members and replaced them with 11 new appointments, including Trump loyalists Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie. Scott O’Grady, another appointee, shared conspiracy theories on Twitter that called the president’s loss to President-elect Joe Biden a ”coup.” He also voiced approval for martial law.

Flynn says the notion isn’t new.

”These people out there talking about martial law like it’s something we’ve never done,” Flynn told Kelly. ”Martial law has been instituted 64 times. I’m not calling for that. We have a constitutional process. … That has to be followed. But I will tell you I’m a little concerned about Chief Justice John Roberts at the Supreme Court. We can’t fool around with the fabric of the Constitution of the United States.”

Trump pardoned his former national security adviser last month, ending a years-long prosecution in the Russia investigation that saw Flynn twice plead guilty to lying to the FBI. As with the recent election results, the president has called the Russia probe a long-running hoax.

ORIGINAL SOURCE: Date-stamped: 2020 Dec 17 - Time-stamped: 08:27 PM - Author: Solange Reyner - (Newsmax TV/"Greg Kelly Reports") Title: Michael Flynn to Newsmax TV: Trump Has Options to Secure Integrity of 2020 Election - Article Link 01: newsmaxtv.com - Article Link 02: newsmax.com

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