Two Democratic members I sent a letter President Trump, who campaigned on sending federal troops to the southern border and crime-plagued cities, this week asked top Pentagon officials to ask the military to stay out of the 2024 election, domestic affairs and politics.
“There is no greater responsibility than the oath of office we swear to the Constitution,” Rep. Mickey Sherrill (Dynamo, J.D.), a former Navy helicopter pilot, said in a statement. “Donald Trump has betrayed that oath time and again, most notably on January 6th, when he endangered the peaceful transition of power.”
“As we prepare for the next presidential election, we call on military leaders to reject improper political influence and take the steps necessary to protect the foundations of our democracy.”
Sherrill wrote the letter with Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), a former CIA officer, calling on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other senior military officials to act as “guardrails against the use of military force in domestic matters” and “preserve the system our Founding Fathers designed.”
They specifically asked the Department of Defense to remind them that federal law prohibits soldiers from directly participating in domestic law enforcement, that deploying troops under the Insurrection Act is illegal unless certain conditions are met, and that the military cannot be deployed in response to the exercise of free speech.
In their joint statement, Slotkin and Sherrill noted that Trump’s Cabinet nominees have said they “called for the use of military force to actively participate in unconstitutional domestic activities, including law enforcement and immigration.”
Trump In a 2023 interview with Time magazine, He said he was prepared to send troops to the southern border to deal with illegal immigration.
“I don’t think we need to do that. I think the National Guard can do it. And if they can’t, then we’ll use the military,” he said in an interview with Time magazine when asked if he would use the military to carry out his mass deportation plan.
When asked about Posse Comitatus LawFederal law prohibits the use of federal troops as police forces except in the most extreme circumstances, but Trump has argued that illegal immigrants are “not civilians.”
“These are people who are not in our country legally. This is an invasion of our country,” he said.
Slotkin and Sherrill also wrote about Project 2025, a 1,000-page conservative blueprint for a second Trump administration that was written in large part by Trump administration officials.
The Trump campaign has sought to distance itself from “Project 2025,” Trump’s plan for a sweeping overhaul of the federal government that would see thousands of civil servants fired and replaced with political appointees.
“The authors of Project 2025, a ‘playbook’ for a Trump presidency written by President Trump’s top aides, plan to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy military personnel to assume a domestic law enforcement role beginning with President Trump’s second term in office,” they said in a statement.
During the 2020 presidential election, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley came under fire for wearing combat fatigues and walking with Trump in Lafayette Park after Trump ordered the National Guard to clear people protesting police brutality following the 2020 killing of George Floyd.
Milley later apologised, saying he should not have been there, and wrote a letter of resignation after the incident, which was never sent to Trump.
“I believe you are doing great and irreparable damage to our country. I believe you have made a concerted effort for many years to politicize the United States military,” Milley wrote, according to The New Yorker.
Milley and other Joint Chiefs of Staff after President Trump and other Republican officials spread lies about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Remade an unprecedented statement They recognize President Biden as president and remind soldiers of their oath to the Constitution.
“As military personnel, we must embody the values and ideals of our nation. We support and defend the Constitution,” they wrote at the time. “On January 20, 2021, in accordance with the Constitution, approved by the states and the courts, and certified by Congress, President-elect Biden will be inaugurated.”
“Principled military leaders have taken an important stand for democracy by making clear they will not cooperate with this effort,” Slotkin said in a statement. “In the interest of the nation and our military, it is once again essential that senior military leaders clarify and affirm these long-held principles.”
The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign.
