1/2/2024 0 Comments Will there be martial law 2021![]() There are at least three possible solutions to checking a president intent on abusing his Insurrection Act power. The Times reports that Trump advisors, including former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn, and Roger Stone, suggested that martial law be declared or that the military be used to seize voting machines and “rerun” the election. The Insurrection Act came up again as Trump desperately considered options that would help him overturn Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 election. Trump’s idea was successfully rejected by then Defense Secretary Mark Esper. Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act following the nationwide and sometimes violent protests that erupted after a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd. That’s why we need to ensure that act is never misused by a president. But the major exception to that rule is the Insurrection Act. In fact, there’s a law, the Posse Comitatus Act, that prohibits federal military forces from actively engaging in civilian law enforcement without congressional or constitutional authority. That authority is even weightier if the battle will be against us, on our own soil. There may be no greater presidential power than the authority to send our troops into battle. ![]() Yet, according to The New York Times report, it’s not the law against insurrection with which the committee finds issue it’s the part of the law that permits a president to unilaterally proclaim that an insurrection is active and to use troops to quash whatever he thinks fits the bill. Insurrection consists in any combined resistance to the lawful authority of the state, with intent to cause the denial thereof, when the same is manifested, or intended to be manifested, by acts of violence.” Federal law makes insurrection punishable by a fine and up to ten years in prison. Black’s Law Dictionary defines insurrection as: “A rebellionor rising of citizens or subjects in resistance to their government. Since that January 6, the word “insurrection” has been used by some – in my opinion correctly - to describe what happened at the Capitol that day. ![]() What we don’t seem to have, and what the committee seems focused on, is carefully defined presidential parameters to deal with it.
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