Pentagon holding secret meetings to discuss going rogue under Trump

Senior officials at the Department of Defense (DoD) have been holding secret meetings to discuss how to thwart President-Elect Donald Trump’s orders, according to a CNN report last week.

Pentagon leadership are war-gaming a scenario in which Trump orders the military to assist in the mass deportations of millions of illegal immigrants who flooded in under the Biden-Harris administration. They are also preparing a response if Trump fires large swathes of federal employees, which he likely will. The incoming president is designing a major overhaul of the federal government and recently announced plans to dismantle the Department of Education.

“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,” a Pentagon official reportedly told CNN.

“Troops are compelled by law to disobey unlawful orders,” said another official. “But the question is what happens then – do we see resignations from senior military leaders? Or would they view that as abandoning their people?”

On Saturday, CNN contributor Scott Jennings commented on the DoD’s “informal meetings.” 

"I don't like this because what's Donald Trump supposed to think?” commented CNN contributor Scott Jennings. “You know, he's sitting down there, he's the president-elect. And now he's got to read in the newspaper tonight that the unelected bureaucracy of the federal government is having meetings at some level about how to thwart or countermand the commander-in-chief.” 

A practice coup in 2021

The Pentagon held similar meetings in January 2021 in which they used the pretext of January 6th to wrest control of the military from Trump. Then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley claimed that Trump was going to issue an “unlawful order” to deploy the military against taxpayers. He therefore instructed DoD officials to disregard orders from Trump unless they came from Milley himself.

Preparing to go rogue

The Gold Report has detailed how Democrats have been preparing to repeat the coup by priming the military to refuse “unlawful orders” from Trump.

NBC reported in January that “a loose-knit network of public interest groups and lawmakers is quietly devising plans to try to foil any efforts to expand presidential power, which could include pressuring the military to cater to his political needs.”

The report also hinted that members of the military are being conditioned to refuse orders from Trump if they are “illegal”:

The military’s role is unique in that soldiers and sailors are trained to obey the commander-in-chief but are told not to follow illegal orders.

Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) was quoted as saying that the United States can survive a Trump presidency if “the military itself resisted what they deemed to be an unlawful order.”

In the meantime, politicians like Blumenthal are working to make Trump’s agenda unlawful. Blumenthal, for instance, is trying to pass a bill that would forbid a withdrawal from NATO, a move Trump has openly supported. 

After last week’s election, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin pointedly reminded the US Armed Forces to only obey “lawful orders” from Trump.

“As it always has, the US military will stand ready to carry out the policy choices of its next Commander in Chief, and to obey all lawful orders from its civilian chain of command,” he wrote in a letter. “You are the United States military — the finest fighting force on Earth — and you will continue to defend our country, our Constitution, and the rights of all of our citizens.”

The Pentagon opened the military to domestic law enforcement

Ironically, though CNN and the Pentagon appear concerned that Trump will use the military for domestic enforcement, it was the Pentagon that recently made it possible.

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prohibits the military from enforcing domestic law. The US Armed Forces have since been forbidden from intervening in civilian affairs, with few exceptions. One of those exceptions is the Insurrection Act, which allows the president to deploy the military to suppress a rebellion against a federal authority.

But on September 27th, 39 days before the 2024 presidential election, the Department of Defense published Directive 5240.01. While previous versions of this directive dealt with the Pentagon’s intelligence activities — such as information collection — the updated version expressly allows the military to use lethal force against civilians in law enforcement scenarios.

The relevant part of Section 3.3a.(2)(c) of the directive reads (emphasis added):

Subject to Paragraph 3.1., Defense Intelligence Components may provide personnel to assist a Federal department or agency, including a Federal law enforcement agency or a State or local law enforcement agency, when lives are in danger, in response to a request for such assistance in accordance with the following approval authorities:

1. Secretary of Defense Approval
2. The Secretary of Defense may approve any type of requested permissible assistance described in Paragraph 3.2
3. The decision to approve requests for these types of permissible assistance described in Paragraph 3.2 to law enforcement agencies and other civil authorities are reserved to the Secretary of Defense:

(a) Provision of personnel to support response efforts for civil disturbances, which may also require Presidential authorization. 

(b) DoD response to chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high-yield explosive incidents.

(c) Assistance in responding with assets with potential for lethality or any situation in which it is reasonably foreseeable that providing the requested assistance may involve the use of force that is likely to result in lethal force, including death or serious bodily injury. It also includes all support to civilian law enforcement officials in situations where a confrontation between civilian law enforcement and civilian individuals or groups is reasonably anticipated. 

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