News

Ok, so I thought I lost it but here is the comment from a coup legal scholar on this topic:

“I found someone sharing this email from a legal scholar in their newsletter and it gives some hope for military intervening.

The email quoted below was sent to me last night by my old friend, Terrence Goggin. He was my history professor at West Point...

I decided to share Goggin’s e-mail because I think it gives a good summary of the impending crisis in Washington and what might happen if push comes to shove in the courts, especially if Trump decides to start defying court orders.”

“There is talk in the administration of ignoring the District Court’s Order and seizing control of the U.S. Treasury disbursements by fiat. That would bring a Gunfight at the OK Corral resolution, rather than an orderly legal resolution. The District Court could order anyone violating its Order to be held in contempt and order its U.S. Marshals or the Military to arrest them. All sorts of possible scenarios could flow from that, including potential ‘blue on blue’ violence. In other words, inter-departmental violence: U.S. Marshalls, or the FBI vs the Military.

That is my fear. It is similar to nuclear war. Once blue on blue violence starts, it can easily become uncontrollable and require the military to intervene, which last happened at the start of the Civil War. That would be a very bad result. However, one could argue that it’s better than a totalitarian dictatorship.

Later Sunday morning, the Trump/Musk Administration upped the ante by indicating that the lower court orders are illegal. Vice President JD Vance declared that ‘Judges are not allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.’ The New York Times noted that ‘it raises the question whether the administration would stop abiding by Court rulings if it deemed them to be illegitimately impeding Trump’s agenda.’

That implies that the administration is prepared to take the law into their own hands and require the courts to enforce their orders by contempt proceedings, utilizing U.S. Marshalls to arrest officials in contempt of court orders. Then we have a Gun Fight at the OK Corral, a standoff followed by a bloody gun fight. The U.S. Marshalls won that fight.

The U.S. Marshalls work for the Federal Courts, but the President appoints the Director of the U.S. Marshalls. The President could order the U.S. Marshalls not to enforce a court’s contempt order. In that case, the default enforcement authority would be the U.S. Military, who are sworn to defend the Constitution and have historically done so when the President refused to enforce the requirements of the Constitution.

The military has done it twice. In 1861, before Abraham Lincoln was sworn in, the sitting President James Buchanan ordered General in Chief of the Army Winfield Scott to turn over control of the Army’s forts and arsenals in the south to Southern seceding states. Scott refused on grounds it was an illegal order and ordered the Federal Forces to resist. On January 6, 2021, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley was ordered by the Acting Secretary of Defense, per the White House and presumably the President, to stand down and refuse the request of the Speaker of the House and the Vice President to defend the capital with the National Guard and expel the insurrectionists from the Capitol, in order that the complete the counting of the presidential electoral votes could take place as mandated by law. General Milley complied with the Speaker and the Vice President’s request and ordered the National Guard to clear the Capitol. President Trump has recently indicated he may have General Milley court martialed for that and other actions but so far, he has not done so.

Both of these precedents give strong support to the United States courts to order the U.S. Military to enforce contempt orders against members of the administration who refuse to abide by the Constitution as the U.S. courts have determined. If they fail to follow final adjudicated court Orders, they will be arrested, just as the insurrectionists of January 6 were arrested, tried and convicted. Without inherent enforcement capabilities, the Constitution and its established Courts are nothing but a phantom and a fantasy. The U.S. Military has historically provided that capability.

This creates a blue on blue confrontation, where armed elements of the Administration would oppose armed military forces carrying out arrest warrants of administration officials who refuse to comply with court Orders. This will not end well but it will end, unless Trump backs down, as he did on January 6. The U.S. Military will follow the Constitution and the law. And their attorneys will tell them that their Commander in Chief has issued an illegal order. The military will do what the Supreme Court orders them to do, given their diverse makeup, their sworn oath to the Constitution and their tradition of Duty, Honor, Country.”