UPDATE: Donald Trump has threatened to unleash “the unlimited power of our Military” to quell the Minnesota uprising, using the U.S. army to essentially “invade” a state without a governor’s consent, writes Joe Lauria.
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
President Donald Trump has threatened to send “active duty” U.S. military to Minnesota to quell the uprising against the police killing of yet another unarmed African-American even though the state’s governor had not accepted Trump’s offer.
The president made his intention known in a series of tweets on Friday:
….These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 29, 2020
Trump said “we will assume control,” clearly meaning the federal government. The National Guard of each state is controlled by the state governor.
The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration has offered “the use of active-duty soldiers and intelligence,” including “some forces who were put on alert to deploy.”
The New York Times and other media said “military police” were being prepared by the Pentagon and that it would be the first deployment of MPs since the Rodney King uprisings in Los Angeles of 1992.
Trump’s threats to deploy federal troops raise the legal question of whether the U.S. federal army can be deployed on U.S. soil for law enforcement purposes.
Occupying the South
Hayes. (Wikimedia Commons)
After federal troops had put down the Confederate rebellion in 1865, they continued to occupy southern states for another 12 years. When the 1876 presidential election between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel J. Tilden ended in a virtual deadlock, with 20 electoral votes unresolved, Southern states allowed Hayes to become president in exchange for the removal of federal troops in what became known as the Compromise of 1877.
After Hayes soon reneged on the deal and deployed federal troops to put down the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, Congress passed the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 to codify the agreement. The Act today reads:
“Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”
The exceptions authorized by Congress would be critical. In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower found an exception to the Act to return federal troops South to Little Rock, Arkansas to enforce desegregation of the schools after the governor refused to obey a 1954 Supreme Court decision ruling school segregation unconstitutional.
Eisenhower
Eisenhower drew on the Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871 that enforced blacks’ rights to vote, hold office, serve on juries and get equal protection under the law.
1967 Detroit Riots
In July 1967, President Lyndon Johnson sent 5,000 federal troops to Detroit, the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, after a request from the Michigan governor to put down five-days of rioting sparked by a police raid on an African-American, unlicensed, after-hours bar.
Johnson told a national television audience that he was acting under the “Constitution” and “the statutes,” though he did not name them.
Michigan Gov. George Romney had declared a “state of insurrection.” In his executive order, Johnson cited 10 U.S. code, Chap. 15– Military Support for Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies.
The Detroit uprising was the worst in the U.S. since the 1863 Draft Riot in New York City. After five days, 41 people were dead, and more than 1,300 buildings burned.
In 1992, President George H.W. Bush deployed 4,000 Army and Marine troops to Los Angeles to put down riots after the police who beat Rodney King were acquitted. Bush’s exception was to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act. One section of it reads today:
“Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.”
This section of the Act does not require the agreement of local authorities for the president to deploy troops to put down an insurrection if federal laws are broken, such as looters and violent protestors crossing state lines.
Bush’s son, George W. Bush, in 2006 successfully asked Congress to expand the Insurrection Act to allow deployment of federal troops in case of a natural disaster or a terrorist attack, thereby weakening the intent of the Posse Comitatus Act.
When Barack Obama signed the 2012 Defense Authorization Act on New Year’s Eve 2011, he was agreeing to allow indefinite military detention of civilians in the U.S. and anywhere abroad. “There is substantial public debate and uncertainty around whether Sections 1021 and 1022 of the NDAA could be read even to repeal the Posse Comitatus Act and authorize indefinite military detention without charge or trial within the United States,” the American Civil Liberties Union said.
LA police beating Rodney King. (Flickr)
Given this legal background it appears Trump, if he declares that federal law has been broken, could follow through with his threat, even if local authorities don’t agree.
Francis Boyle, a University of Illinois professor of international law, said Attorney General William Barr “worked for [H.W.] Bush, he has been through this exercise before and is aware of what happened and the legal precedents and authority. I am sure he has advised Trump he can pull the Federal Trigger if he wants to no matter what the Minnesota governor wants.”
“My guess is Trump probably will,” said Boyle. “Makes him look like the Law and Order guy for the campaign. Distracts from his Covid-19 disaster.” So far Trump seems satisfied with the Minnesota National Guard’s performance on Saturday night.
The National Guard has been released in Minneapolis to do the job that the Democrat Mayor couldn’t do. Should have been used 2 days ago & there would not have been damage & Police Headquarters would not have been taken over & ruined. Great job by the National Guard. No games!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2020
But it is chilling to think that he’s got the legal exceptions to round up a posse and send it to Minneapolis or any of the 48 cities that are on fire.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Sunday Times of London and numerous other newspapers. He began his professional career as a stringer for The New York Times. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @unjoe .
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Mr. Lauria,
Have a “like” or “upvote” for that headline pun…
But you have missed one significant case of the use of the Army against civilian demonstrators:
In the summer of 1968, they intended to use paratroopers against the protestors at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago (“The whole world is watching!”). The troops were gathered for this purpose at a base in downstate Illinois. Most people have never heard about this, because the soldiers (many of whom were black) mutinied, and refused to go. Naturally, this was hushed up.
As has occurred in history in the past, and so we KNOW it can happen again. Sometimes, the soldiers refuse to point their guns at other citizens.
Hey, did you see that YouTube video of the bow & arrow fella in Salt Lake City? I am curious. I wonder who saved his life? Still, he got what he deserved didn’t he….and the burning of the vehicle was a bonus that arose out of nothing but anger. Justified anger is how it seemed to me and it must have been coordinate in a real local real-time way because when that car was burning it was the only one left.
BK
A BIT MORE PERSPECTIVE:
Obama’s ex-advisor, Susan Rice, said of the American riots, “There were extremists who had come to hijack American protests and turn them into something very different, and this was right out of the Russian playbook.”
John & Buffalo_Ken: From my perspective to yours.
Read what Rumsfeld said April 11, 2003: see: upi.com/3472486
“The task we have ahead of us now is an awkward one….it’s untidy. And freedom is untidy. And free people are free to make mistakes and do bad things. They are also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that is what is going on here.”
John re: Susan Rice, of course she said that she is one of THEM! Nancy also, THEY need a “RED STRAW HERRING” . As I have shown here Donny Rumsfeld made a very similar statement trying to justify U.S. failure in Iraq.
Now however, after both parties have sat on there hands until the country is actually in peril they expect all the B.S. to be forgotten.
Let the police keep on killing unarmed individuals. Something that cannot be make right. Gentlemen we have a very serious problem in the White House. This man is in no way up to the task he and his attorney general are creating. Get ready for a long summer.
To whom ever the moderator might be in the days ahead I predict your job will become more difficult. One will be asked, as now, to keep putting up with this horse S$#@ or voicing demands for it to stop.
I have not heard one dogdamned comment since the death of George Floyd live on TV saying “Hey folks we will make it through this because we all are in this together.” Not once. Why not because we are all in this together and I’m fearful we are all about to learn that one undeniable fact, as Americans we are all in this together. To deny that truth is to be a TRUE TRUMPIAN BELIEVER, nothing else.
Now lets all try to think of what Robert might say at this point in time. Let’s not get this wrong and let him down.
Thanks to all at CN for actually caring about people and the truth!
Wow! Those evil “Rooskies” are at it again! First they destroy our “democracy,” now they’re duping black people into rioting! I bet the cop who murdered Floyd was secretly a Russian Agent (or maybe just a useful idiot?)!
Russia shmussia
Note for perspective:
The words “a beautiful sight to behold” were used by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to describe the Hong Kong riots last year
Very good summary of the legalities and precedents that enable Trump or any president to emulate some of the world’s most infamous dictators on a whim.
Absolutely frightening, Obama authorizing what amount to a suspension of habeas corpus is another strike against the corrupt and treacherous rein of Mr. “hopey changy”. And demonstrates the corruption of the DNC that allows him to be a major influence behind the scenes. It is a shame many revere him; he is no better than “Dubya”, as Bush the lesser is called in Texas.
I keep appreciating how decent German’s must have felt in the early 1930’s. Of course the biggest problem with fascists is they usually destroy their country not just the scapegoats they attack; Trump has made a very thorough start on that task. With his environmental policies-or lack thereof- he is aiming for the whole world.
Trump’s default characteristic is that of hostility and division. All of this civil unrest is on Trump’s watch, and is because of his weak moral leadership.
Joe, you list the successive use of the U$ military, in country, by Eisenhower, Johnson, and Bush, as well as the efforts to expand, very significantly, the Insurrection Act by Bush the Lesser and Obama (the Pusillanimous Fabulist) whose combined efforts DID essentially repeal Posse Comitatus, as Trump will declare, and then act, claiming that he has full license to do whatever he, as Chief Executive, wishes …
The real question is whether members of the U$ military will, as readily as have police forces, be willing to use lethal force on the populace?
Given the wholesale destruction of civil society BY the political class, permitting, even encouraging, the financial and corporate classes to plunder and pillage the world, other nations, AND U$ society, one may readily imagine that, long accustomed to following orders that included torture as well as using depleted uranium weapons on people in other nations, of committing war crimes, as revealed by Manning and Assange, U$ troops will dutifully fulfill the “service” required of them and that the comfortable “middle” will effusively thank them for doing so.
Killing the poor, marginalized, and ostracized has never much troubled the many in the U$, indeed it is relished quite as much as apple pie.
Look at how the media and political class, for the most part, are reacting to the destruction of things, of “propety”, this past week while, for decades, they have said NOTHING about the destruction of human beings and civil society, both here and abroad, by the police, by policy (economic sanctions), by the U$ military (and all of MITTI MATT).
Who, may any of us imagine, will stand against Trump, should he unleash the U$ Military upon the people?
The media?
The media salivate at the prospect of (un)civil war: It might not be good for the country, but it will be swell for their Bottom Line).
The Democrat$?
How could they really “resist” Trump?They have given him all that he asked for and more, both funds and license and, as many here know, have spent three and ahalf years pushing the nonsense of Russiagate, creating a McCarthy-like “climate” of mean suspicion, silencing and harming those who dared question their evidence-free BS, and creating an atmosphere of a “New Cold War”, now with “bipartisan” convenience shifted to include China, as well. These folks are not courageous wisdoms, willing to stand for justice, for principle, or even the truth, they are grifters, as are the Republican$.
Will the oligarchs stand against Trump?
What do any ration human being think of that as likelihood?
What of university communities, many of which are tied to “Defense” Department largess. Universities seem complacent to bask in the glory of building “leaders” for governmental, financial and corporate “interests”, of being bastions of “meritorious” mediocrity, of closing down debate as dangerous or threatening, as if they’ve no professors who could outshine authoritarian advocates and cultural supremacists with ease, humor, facts, humanity, and scintillating wit.
What if the intellectual(?) class?
These folks have noticed nothing amiss for decades it would seem; ponder Pinker, fancy Fukuyama.
I guess that just leaves us.
What are we thinking about in terms of preparing to deal with things likely to become far worse, of heavy repression and economic Depression, of heightened precarity and growing frustration?
Why not address those truly responsible for the conditions that are driving people to extreme?
The police could not act as they do were not the entire “justice” system corrupt, from the top down.
Is that not, in fact, the case with most every “system” that is part of the larger system?
The economic system.
The educational system,
The food supply system.
The political system and the blatant lack of actual democracy, while everyone pretends that voting can “make a difference” when the two wings of the war and money party promise only
“more the same” and “nothing will change”.
Is it not time for the many to realize that only they have real reason to change things?
For the elite, things have never been better.
Except for the pesky destruction of property.
Civil Society and prosperity for the many?
The elites profit, so they believe, from the destruction of those things, whatever they may claim to the contrary, their actions belie their empty words.
@DW Bartoo from 6120 0932 – published in a bunch of 4.
I think the answer to the question from the 2nd paragraph is NO.
So where do we go from here?
BK
One of the best comments I have read on CN! Thanks for the insights.
Francis Boyle said, “It makes him look like a Law and Order candidate for the campaign. Distracts from his Covid-19 disaster.”
I suppose Francis might be right about his first point. His followers need a constant supply of his B.S. to remind them how they need to think. He must constantly reinforce his lies because he incapable of leading. Deceive and divide and never lead.
This virus thing not so much. He blew it big time!
The way I have it figured this fake president, with his fake tan and fake logic is seen by most as blithering idiot responsible thousands of deaths around the world. It is what it is and nothing else.
Anyone besides me notice this slope seems to be getting slicker?
I am not particularly fond of the namespaces but do understand trump to first be a liar, incapable of a truth, than a thief, stealing trillions from the american people to pay his debts to the rich, Russian mobs and cover his bills he could no other way pay. His only true reason to run for re-election is to keep himself, his family and associates out of prison.
“But it is chilling to think that [Trump]’s got the legal exceptions to round up a posse and send it to Minneapolis or any of the 48 cities that are on fire.”
Indeed it is. And we can thank all those who were fine with handing such powers to Obama.
Maybe Trump can just put the protesters on the
kill list“diposition matrix” and drone them.And here we go again?? Trumps threatens to grab the so called THUGS, by the posse, for rioting & looting? Does anyone notice the irony & absolute hypocrisy in this? The protesters & rioters in Hong Kong, who are causing the same acts of violence & damage, but over a longer period, are called HEROES & freedom fighters for Democracy by Trump & his Administration & MSM, but his own people are called thugs & crooks for doing the same acts, although the catalysts are different, one being a law change & the other a murder, injustice is not privy to any one Nation! This Nation, called America is heading for utter collapse? The Societal cracks are irreversible? People are finally waking up & coming to the realisation that there is something seriously wrong with their Country, its past the point of no return & the murderous death of this coloured man provided the spark?
And no CNN the Russians, Chinese & Iranians had nothing to do with your Countries riots & looting so blame yourselves! From it’s incompetent President called Trump, a carnival barker who’s made a hash of America’s Pandemic response & the resulting staggering death rate & its economy in freefall & tatters with massive unemployment, all of America’s problems & especially its hidden racism problems are oozing to the surface! Fifty years of trickle down, neoliberal economics has left this Country a hollowed out shell based on individualism & Elitism? The collective good that enables other Nations to invest in the care of their own Citizens such as providing Social services such as Universal Healthcare, education & social safety nets funded by a fair Tax system is despised & hated in America & viewed as Socialism! This is a system I call Co-op Collectivism where everyone contributes into a scheme via Taxation that benefits every Citizen!
America’s system is Individualism, that means no one cares about anyone else, your on your own as individuals there is no common, collective good! With Co-op Collectivism, Infrastructure spending, Education, social safety nets such as benefits & paid parental leave & sick leave are baked in! Race relations are also a priority for Nations with a strong Social systems so that the social contract with their Citizens is maintained! America does not invest in its own people, be they black, white or any other color? It does not value the Health or wellbeing of its Citizens & doesn’t invest in infrastructure spending, Education, Healthcare or race relations? It priorities are Profits over people via War profiteering, meddling in other Nations affairs, unhinged MIC spending & Corporate cronyism? These are the actions of a sick, demented & morally Bankrupt Nation that’s becoming a Police State & its attitudes towards its Citizens, such as the killing of this coloured man & the reactions of the mass protests & rioting is symptomatic of this Nations festering corruption & hatred for it’s own people!
KiwiAntz you took some words out of my mind!
1. The blatancy of the hypocrisy (US & UK’s) vis a vis Hong Kong “pro- democracy protestors,” and their really existing violence (including beating two journalists at the airport when they took it over, preventing flights; beating up others who made manifest their disagreement with them; setting a man on fire, thereby killing him; making Molotov cocktails (for fun? or use?); defacing many public buildings; throwing stones at the cops), the dearth, absence of MSM coverage of that violence with the concentration being on the HK police (clearly hoping that they would become as violent as the French cops were throughout 2019 toward the Gilets Jaunes). But only of late have the HK police used Tear Gas and only during these latest demos have they used “pepperballs.”
Meanwhile the US cops, trained in Occupied Palestine (more yet, the West Bank) or by their military over here, plus the National Guard (weekend soldiers) from the get-go have been violent, using tear gas and rubber bullets/pepperballs and possibly even stun grenades (the cause of much damage to the Gilets Jaunes demonstrators). They have ridden horses into protestors; driven vehicles toward protestors – clearly threatening the latter with serious injury if not death. And if Ferguson was owt to go by, tanks will appear on the streets.
2. As for the usual bleat – repeated, repeated – that “Russia did it” (or China, or Iran). NO – the US DID IT, has done it since its inception – well, from the moment the first Brits landed on these shores paleskins have killed, maimed, stolen land, enslaved, maintained segregation, kept up profiling based on skin pigmentation, ensured that the paleskins, especially the bourgeois among them, but not only, have kept “their” privileges at the complete expense of African, Native and Latino (more often than not also Native) Americans.
Sick utterly sick.
As a U.S.-born citizen who had the good fortune of being raised in Europe, I can, sadly, only concur with your observations. When I returned to the U.S. on my own in 1968, the first thing that struck me was that the “idea” and ideals of the United States were no longer operative, and that the one word that summed up the whole mess was “hypocrisy.” mr. trump is just the culmination of the down-hill slide we’ve been on since… when??? If I could afford to re-un-emigrate, I would
I’m in Minneapolis and wondering what he’s waiting for.
Bullies in police dept.
Why did the police get involved?Secret Service only…was Mr.Floyd beaten in the squad car?
He was known in the community to these wiseguy policemen.
In other words, a[ME]rica first?
What Trump doesn’t understand is that the widespread shock and disgust required expression – which is why many cities held press conferences late afternoon yesterday featuring community leaders imploring people to protest peacefully. Facing down these emotions with militarized police, let alone the military, demonstrates essentially the same indifference expressed by the officer who killed Floyd.
Trump also doesn’t understand the dilemma faced on Friday night in Minneapolis where, as the governor stated publicly, the available police were entirely outnumbered. State patrol and national guard can be concentrated to some effect, but if you have sufficiently alienated a significant portion of the population your security forces will be outnumbered. Back in the early ’70s Nixon was bluntly told this by the military: there was not enough military/police to handle a widespread domestic uprising.
Here, the problem is that the government failed to take action on Tuesday.
The very people – the PO-LICE – who kill African Americans at will and apparently with pleasure? The US Military who kill non white-skinned peoples around the world willingly, happily? Who would want these barbarians around?
These “troops” are there to protect the socio-economic-segregation-status quo, secure the property of the rich-ultra wealthy from the potential take-over by the hoi polloi? To ensure that the Banksters and the Bourgeoisie can continue to live as they have done for centuries (they may have different names, but they are essentially of the same mindset, of the same ilk as their historical counterparts)?
Thank you for this investigation into powers of the executive to suppress insurrections.
Congressional scams to sneak powers never approved by the people into an NDAA are symptoms of deep corruption.
Rioters should organize cells to take out facilities of corrupt government entities and mass media, but then disappear.
No need to maintain riots after the point is made: instead identify and penalize those who attempted suppression.
Joe, you list the successive use of the U$ military, in country, by Eisenhower, Johnson, and Bush, as well as the efforts to expand, very significantly, the Insurrection Act by Bush the Lesser and Obama (the Pusillanimous Fabulist) whose combined efforts DID essentially repeal Posse Comitatus, as Trump will declare, and then act, claiming that he has full license to do whatever he, as Chief Executive, wishes …
The real question is whether members of the U$ military will, as readily as have police forces, be willing to use lethal force on the populace?
Given the wholesale destruction of civil society BY the political class, permitting, even encouraging, the financial and corporate classes to plunder and pillage the world, other nations, AND U$ society, one may readily imagine that, long accustomed to following orders that included torture as well as using depleted uranium weapons on people in other nations, of committing war crimes, as revealed by Manning and Assange, U$ troops will dutifully fulfill the “service” required of them and that the comfortable “middle” will effusively thank them for doing so.
Killing the poor, marginalized, and ostracized has never much troubled the many in the U$, indeed it is relished quite as much as apple pie.
Look at how the media and political class, for the most part, are reacting to the destruction of things, of “propety”, this past week while, for decades, they have said NOTHING about the destruction of human beings and civil society, both here and abroad, by the police, by policy (economic sanctions), by the U$ military (and all of MITTI MATT).
Who, may any of us imagine, will stand against Trump, should he unleash the U$ Military upon the people?
The media?
The media salivate at the prospect of (un)civil war: It might not be good for the country, but it will be swell for their Bottom Line).
The Democrat$?
How could they really “resist” Trump?They have given him all that he asked for and more, both funds and license and, as many here know, have spent three and ahalf years pushing the nonsense of Russiagate, creating a McCarthy-like “climate” of mean suspicion, silencing and harming those who dared question their evidence-free BS, and creating an atmosphere of a “New Cold War”, now with “bipartisan” convenience shifted to include China, as well. These folks are not courageous wisdoms, willing to stand for justice, for principle, or even the truth, they are grifters, as are the Republican$.
Will the oligarchs stand against Trump?
What do any ration human being think of that as likelihood?
What of university communities, many of which are tied to “Defense” Department largess. Universities seem complacent to bask in the glory of building “leaders” for governmental, financial and corporate “interests”, of being bastions of “meritorious” mediocrity, of closing down debate as dangerous or threatening, as if they’ve no professors who could outshine authoritarian advocates and cultural supremacists with ease, humor, facts, humanity, and scintillating wit.
What if the intellectual(?) class?
These folks have noticed nothing amiss for decades it would seem; ponder Pinker, fancy Fukuyama.
I guess that just leaves us.
What are we thinking about in terms of preparing to deal with things likely to become far worse, of heavy repression and economic Depression, of heightened precarity and growing frustration?
Why not address those truly responsible for the conditions that are driving people to extreme?
The police could not act as they do were not the entire “justice” system corrupt, from the top down.
Is that not, in fact, the case with most every “system” that is part of the larger system?
The economic system.
The educational system,
The food supply system.
The political system and the blatant lack of actual democracy, while everyone pretends that voting can “make a difference” when the two wings of the war and money party promise only
“more the same” and “nothing will change”.
Is it not time for the many to realize that only they have real reason to change things?
For the elite, things have never been better.
Except for the pesky destruction of property.
Civil Society and prosperity for the many?
The elites profit, so they believe, from the destruction of those things, whatever they may claim to the contrary, their actions belie their empty words.
Yes, DWB, police could not terrorize “were not the entire ‘justice’ system corrupt, from the top down.”
It is rightwing judges who set the standard of repression by approving police murders to keep the poor in line.
They are corrupt from the top down, oligarchy parties making corruption the standard of judicial promotion.
Yes, we have no democracy, only fake elections of the dual “war and money party” perpetuating corruption.
President Lawless, Breaks-All-Treaties now insists on law and order.
I wonder what would happen to his reelection bid after shooting up U.S. citizens without a fair hearing not to mention trial?
Probably not a problem since Obama assassinated Americans and the public didn’t care.
Since that has been happening practically every day for years, I don’t see it being a real problem for his re-election…
Doing that in one city is one thing. Doing it in a half dozen or more cities is something else entirely.
Is doing it in one city really just “one thing”, or the start of the latter?