Trump allies who have been calling for him to declare martial law to stay in power are being widely condemned across the country.
Not long after receiving an illegitimate pardon from Trump that confirms his guilt, disgraced former National Security Advisor and retired Lt. General Michael Flynn shared a post on Twitter calling for Trump to impose martial law and order the military to conduct the 2020 Election again.
The election has now been certified by all fifty states, with Biden winning the race in both the electoral and popular vote count by margins that are undeniable. Trump has desperately tried in vain to overturn the results through the judiciary as judges laugh his lawsuits out of court because Trump has not provided a single shred of evidence to support his election fraud allegations.
So, it now appears that Trump’s supporters want him to go an even more extreme route by overturning the Constitution itself, an act of treason that legal experts and a four-star general unequivocally condemned.
You don’t need to be a lawyer to know that this would be unconstitutional, illegal, and completely antithetical to American values like democracy and the rule of law.
Flynn and Trump’s other allies are making their authoritarian and anti-democratic values explicit. https://t.co/Chnwr9JI1B
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) December 2, 2020
The Uniform Code of Military Justice defines as “sedition” one who, “with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of lawful civil authority, creates, in concert with any other person, revolt, violence, or *other disturbance* against that authority”:https://t.co/YJWVM5lx27 https://t.co/MwZQgmXrgp
— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) December 2, 2020
To be sure, there is an open question as to whether *retired* servicemembers like @genflynn can constitutionally remain subject to the UCMJ (and my own view is that the answer should be no).
But the government’s consistent position has been—and remains—that the answer is “yes.”
— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) December 2, 2020
This simply was not written by a sane cogent person. Imagine if he had remained as national security adviser. And now compare him in judgment and experience to @jakejsullivan . Foreign countries’, especially allies’, long nightmare also ending. https://t.co/Jhm1pYwE6V
— Harry Litman (@harrylitman) December 2, 2020
LTG Ret MIKE FLYNN CALLS FOR MARTIAL LAW AND A NEW ELECTION. CRIMINAL. CRAZY. DANGEROUS. —-https://t.co/Bz3O534udr
— Barry R McCaffrey (@mccaffreyr3) December 3, 2020
Flynn is literally encouraging an assault on the Constitution. Declaring martial law has not happened since Abraham Lincoln did it, and the reason he did it was because of the Civil War.
Trump has no such internal national emergency to cite as justification for declaring martial law and it’s likely any attempt to do so would spark violence and bloodshed across the country. Flynn should be prosecuted for sedition after Trump leaves office, because then he won’t have anyone to pardon him. Thankfully, active military leadership would likely disobey Trump’s illegal orders.
Featured Image: Screenshot
