There appears to be a cancer in the Pentagon with sedition on its mind

If this story of a cabal of Pentagon officials meeting to undermine the incoming constitutional commander-in-chief of the U.S. military had been a rumor circulating on X or I’d received in an email from some random source, I would have discounted it. But that’s not the case; it comes from CNN. This suggests that something is deeply wrong in the Pentagon—the same Pentagon that “forgot” to send absentee ballots to U.S. troops serving overseas, a gross violation of their civil rights, and one that ought to result in courts-martial all the way up to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

According to CNN, Pentagon officials are trying to figure out how to block any orders Donald Trump might issue to protect the Southern border or remove from U.S. soil the millions of unvetted illegal aliens currently occupying the U.S.:

Pentagon officials are holding informal discussions about how the Department of Defense would respond if Donald Trump issues orders to deploy active-duty troops domestically and fire large swaths of apolitical staffers, defense officials told CNN.

Trump has suggested he would be open to using active-duty forces for domestic law enforcement and mass deportations and has indicated he wants to stack the federal government with loyalists and “clean out corrupt actors” in the US national security establishment.

Trump in his last term had a fraught relationship with much of his senior military leadership, including now-retired Gen. Mark Milley who took steps to limit Trump’s ability to use nuclear weapons while he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The president-elect, meanwhile, has repeatedly called US military generals “woke,” “weak” and “ineffective leaders.”

Officials are now gaming out various scenarios as they prepare for an overhaul of the Pentagon.

“We are all preparing and planning for the worst-case scenario, but the reality is that we don’t know how this is going to play out yet,” one defense official said.

Trump’s election has also raised questions inside the Pentagon about what would happen if the president issued an unlawful order, particularly if his political appointees inside the department don’t push back.

First, it’s clearly within the federal government’s purview to protect the American border from foreign invasions, whether terrorists, cartels, or the economic refugees amongst whom they hide. That means the president has the authority to order troops to the border. If people in the Pentagon conspire to refuse that order, in the best case, it’s a seditious conspiracy to undermine the president’s constitutional authority. In the worst case, it’s treason. And in any case, if they’re military, that would begin with a court martial.

Second, the president clearly has the constitutional authority to protect Americans on American soil from invaders who have already breached the border. The punishment for obstructive Pentagon officials would range from courts-martial to trials for seditious conspiracy or treason.

Third, the president has the authority under the Enforcement Acts to send troops to hot spots on American soil if there is unrest that is depriving citizens of their civil rights. In addition, even the Posse Comitatus Act, which limits the federal government’s power to use the military on American soil to enforce domestic policies, has several compelling exceptions.

For example, the Insurrection Act allows the president to deploy troops to suppress civil disorder, insurrection, or rebellion. The Attorney General also has the authority to request that the Secretary of Defense provide emergency assistance to ineffective domestic local law enforcement.

Nor is any of the above airy-fairy theory. In the past seven decades, presidents have often called in the military:

  • 1957: Dwight D. Eisenhower sent the Army’s 101st Airborne Division to desegregate Little Rock’s schools.
  • 1962: JFK federalized Alabama’s National Guard to force Gov. George Wallace to admit two African-American students to the University of Alabama.
  • 1965: LBJ used Alabama’s federalized National Guard to quell the Bloody Sunday protests in Montgomery, Alabama.
  • 1967: LBJ called in the Army and National Guard to quell the Detroit riots.
  • 1968: After MLK, Jr. was assassinated, Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley approved calling in the Army when riots broke out. In D.C., 13,600 troops occupied the city to quell riots. National Guard troops were also deployed across Baltimore.
  • 1970: Richard Nixon called the National Guard to New York City after U.S. postal workers went on strike.
  • 1989: After Hurricane Hugo struck the U.S. Virgin Islands, George H. W. Bush called in the National Guard to stop looting.
  • 1992: Reserve soldiers headed to Los Angeles after the Rodney King verdict sparked rioting.
  • 2021: The National Guard occupied D.C. for Joe Biden’s inauguration.

For a president to quell civil unrest is normal. And for a president to use the military as needed to oust invaders from American soil is common sense. If anyone in the Pentagon blocks the president from doing so...back to those courts-martial, and sedition and treason trials.

The bottom line is that what is allegedly happening within the Pentagon—something that was obviously an authorized leak to a friendly outlet; i.e., CNN—represents the complete breakdown of our non-partisan constitutional military, one that the Founders established to be controlled not by a cabal of officers but by a president whom the American people elect.

When President Trump cleans out the Augean stables of D.C., what’s happening in the Pentagon had better be among the top ten items on his list.

Image: Rank and file troops celebrate President Trump’s visit to Afghanistan for Thanksgiving—that’s not where the rot is. YouTube screen grab.

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