Trump Threatens to Execute Members of Congress for Reminding Soldiers that Obeying Illegal Military Commands Is Illegal
Sometimes Donald Trump’s abuses of his executive power are subtle, and sometimes they are flagrantly, blazingly obvious. Trump is now threatening to execute members of Congress for “sedition,” simply for restating the established legal principle that members of the U.S. military are required to disobey illegal orders.
NBC News has the better headline, but this The New York Times report is more succinct:
President Trump accused a group of Democratic lawmakers of sedition in an outburst on social media Thursday morning and said their behavior was “punishable by death.”
Their crime? Recording a video that reminded members of the military that they are not supposed to obey illegal orders. …
The Democratic lawmakers’ message did not focus on a specific order or scenario, but Trump administration officials have said the lawmakers were encouraging the military to rebel against its commander in chief. As a standard part of their training, members of the military are told that they should refuse to carry out illegal orders. …
And Ms. Slotkin told The New York Times earlier this week that she’d been hearing from active-duty troops concerned about the legality of strikes targeted people accused of drug-smuggling by the Trump administration. …
The six Democrats who produced the video put out a joint statement which read, in part: “What’s most telling is that the President considers it punishable by death for us to restate the law. Our service members should know that we have their backs as they fulfill their oath to the Constitution and obligation to follow only lawful orders. It is not only the right thing to do, but also our duty.
One of the consistent policies of Donald Trump’s presidency is that he is in favor of war crimes. He has granted pardons for them, he has ordered them, and now is threatening members of Congress in an attempt to suppress any suggestion that the U.S. military is not required to commit war crimes when he asks them to.
The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.
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