Kennedy and Dwight Eisenhower used the law to protect activists and students desegregating schools. in 1968.ĭuring the Civil Rights era, Presidents Johnson, John F. Lyndon Johnson invoked it three times - in Baltimore, Chicago and Washington - in response to the unrest in cities after the assassination of Dr. Presidents have issued a total of 40 proclamations invoking the law, some of those done multiple times for the same crisis, Nunn said. In the 2022 midterms, 57% of military veterans supported Republican candidates. military veterans voted for Trump in the 2020 presidential election. AP VoteCast, an in-depth survey of more than 94,000 voters nationwide, showed that 59% of U.S. Trump and his party nevertheless retain wide support among those who have served in the military. The memo emphasized the oaths they took and called the events of that day, which were intended to stop certification of Democrat Joe Biden's victory over Trump, “sedition and insurrection.” He was one of the eight members of the Joint Chiefs who signed a memo to military personnel in the aftermath of the Jan. Flynn suggested in the aftermath of the 2020 election that Trump could seize voting machines and order the military in some states to help rerun the election.Īttempts to invoke the Insurrection Act and use the military for domestic policing would likely elicit pushback from the Pentagon, where the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is Gen. Michael Flynn, who served briefly as Trump’s national security adviser and twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during its Russian influence probe before being pardoned by Trump. Trump already has suggested he might bring back retired Army Lt. The threats have raised questions about the meaning of military oaths, presidential power and who Trump could appoint to support his approach. Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, the former U.N. His plans also have included using the military against foreign drug cartels, a view echoed by other Republican primary candidates such as Florida Gov. Trump has spoken openly about his plans should he win the presidency, including using the military at the border and in cities struggling with violent crime. It also is one of the most substantial exceptions to the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally prohibits using the military for law enforcement purposes. “It is a law that in many ways was created for a country that doesn’t exist anymore,” he said. Nunn said it's an amalgamation of different statutes enacted between then and the 1870s, a time when there was little in the way of local law enforcement. “There’s not much really in the law to stay the president’s hand.”Ī spokesman for Trump’s campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment about what authority Trump might use to pursue his plans.Ĭongress passed the act in 1792, just four years after the Constitution was ratified. “The principal constraint on the president’s use of the Insurrection Act is basically political, that presidents don’t want to be the guy who sent tanks rolling down Main Street,” said Joseph Nunn, a national security expert with the Brennan Center for Justice. One of its few guardrails merely requires the president to request that the participants disperse. The Insurrection Act allows presidents to call on reserve or active-duty military units to respond to unrest in the states, an authority that is not reviewable by the courts.
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