Trump can't ignore court orders such as the pause on the Federal funding freeze - a persistent modern myth - no president can ignore a court order - Trump has never tried - nothing he can do
This is a rather mysterious belief since Trump has never been able to ignore even one court order. Yet many seem to believe he can ignore the courts.
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Some think he can do it through the insurrection act. But there is no way to do it. Trump doesn’t have the ability to suspend the US Constitution, he doesn’t have the war powers that Soon was able to invoke in South Korea.
There is no way to do it.
We saw that with the funding freeze. A judge ordered an immediate pause of the freeze. Trump did NOT say "good luck enforcing that". He didn’t have any war poers to invoke. He didn’t invoke the insurrection act which would have done absolutely nothing.
He had to comply. Similarly with the order pausing the transfer of trans women to male prisons. He just had to stop immediately.
We see many more court cases on their way and they stop the president instantly. He can’t do a thing if a judge rules that something he ordered needs to be stopped with a temporary restraining order.
I am maintaining a list of some of the more important ones here for now to help scared people:
Trump clearly does comply with court orders - but why? Because of the US Constitution and the many Americans who protect it
It’s obvious he does comply, and he did in his first term too.
Then many will say - but what’s stopping him? Why does he have to comply?
He has to because the US as a whole recognizes the rule of law.
The police including the FBI enforce it. Prison officers. Anyone who works for the government. All Americans that he would try to order to go against the courts would refuse and instead would try to enforce it themselves if they are in a position to do so.
If he finds anyone who is willing to follow an illegal order they would end up in the courts over that themselves. So they won’t do it, even if loyal to him, unless they know very little about the law and the oath they took.
The US Constitution is very powerful - but the text by itself is just words on a page. What makes it so powerful is how it is integrated into American lives, and the way ordinary Americans value and respect the law
Trump can't order the FBI to go against the courts. For instance if he had continued with the funding freeze and ordered the FBI to just not enforce the judge's order, they would refuse because they know it is illegal and unconstitutional and they can't obey an illegal order from the president.
This is built into the whole fabric of the executive. Trump can't order any member of the Federal executive to go against a court order. He has never even tried to do that.
This is in the oath of office for every Federal employee:
QUOTE I, AB, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic ... and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter"
It is the same for the uniformed services. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Uniformed_Services_Oath_of_Office
The National Guard and the military have additional oaths to follow the orders of the president, and additionally for state level forces, to follow the orders of the governor.
But the oath to defend the US Constitution comes first.
Trump can't ignore rulings by the Supreme Court or by lower courts. He can't ignore any rulings of the judiciary. We saw this already when a judge ordered a pause on the funding freeze while the cases go through the courts. There was absolutely nothing Trump could do about that.
Also all generals, officers etc swear to follow the US Constitution above all. They will only obey legal and constitutional orders from their commander in chief. They are trained from the get go as a raw recruit that they have to refuse illegal orders.
A general would have to refuse an order, say, to prevent the police from enforcing a pause on the Federal funding freeze. Trump doesn't even try such a thing, he knows it would fail and nobody would listen to him. The military aren't even permitted to interfere in anything domestic by Posse Comitatus.
So - the court orders are usually not orders restraining the president but orders restraining other members of the executive.
Two simple worked examples to show why a president can’t ignore a court order - moving a trans woman to a male prison - or getting access for Krause to sensitive treasury data
E.g to take a simple example, the judge who ordered a pause that prevented prison officers from moving a trans woman to a male prison.
That’s a link to a section in my page:
How is Trump supposed to defy that court order? The FBI wouldn't disobey it. The prison officers wouldn't. He is not permitted even to use the military. They also would refuse. The national guard would refuse.
Does he ask to be driven there in his presidential car and go in and try by himself to physically restrain the trans woman and move her to a male prison? If he did something like that he'd surely be impeached and be considered to have gone mad.
It would make no difference anyway. His driver would be required to refuse the order to drive the trans woman to a male prison. Anyone who obeyed his order would be themselves liable to be brought to the courts for disobeying an injunction from the courts.
He can't do it.
Take another example. Krause was the only remaining DOGE affiliated special employee of the Treasury with access but as of writing this (8th Feb, 2025), Krause has lost this access. That’s by the court order by District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer,
Musk never had access himself as far as I can tell.
So what can Musk do? Order Krause to illegally access the records? Then Krause gets brought back to the courts for contempt of court. Before he can even get access someone in Treasury would call security and order in security guards to stop Krause. They would obey because they know that what he is doing is now illegal and violating a court order.
Musk try to go in himself? Then he will be stopped from entering by security guards.
What can Trump do? Go into the Treasury along with Krause? Krause still couldn’t get access to the sensitive data. Even with Trump there watching, the security guards would have to block access to Krause with nothing Trump can do about it.
This is usually a confusion about Trump’s immunity ruling.
Trump only has immunity for personal actions that a president himself does. It doesn't let him order others to break the law. Also it's very limited even for things the president himself does.
The president has unconditional immunity for his pardon power. Everyone agreed that before the Supreme Court ruling. The Supreme Court can't do anything because this right is written into the US Constitution. He can pardon anyone in the US, even a prisoner with life imprisonment can be released immediately if the president says he can.
Even then, other things can make the pardon power illegal. If a president issues a pardon in return for a bribe, for instance if he pardoned Musk of some crime in return for a billion dollars - he can be convicted for this. The Supreme Court gave bribes for pardons as an example where the lower courts might well decide he is not immune.
He has only presumed immunity for official acts. For example Trump's order to Mike Pence to read out fraudulent election results has only presumptive immunity and the Supreme Court gave that as an example that the lower courts again might decide he is not immune for, because there is no situation where a future president will be inhibited in what he can do because of a ruling in a lower court that he can't order his vice president to fraudulently change election results.
Then for unofficial acts like Trump's Jan 06 speech, there is no immunity. He can be convicted for such things even as acting president.
He'd normally be impeached first but he could even be convicted before impeachment in principle.
For more details see my blog post:
There is nothing in that ruling that Trump could use to ignore a court injunction to pause or stop an executive order.
Brennan center: even Congress can’t suspend the US constitution or any rights except HABEAS CORUPS - the right to be freed through a court hearing - and has delegated that right to the president in rare situations
Though the president can’t declare martial law in principle Congress could
Part IV: Martial Law is Constrained by the Constitution and Subject to Judicial Review
Even if Congress were to authorize martial law, and the Supreme Court were to uphold its power to do so, the Constitution would still apply. Congress, the president, and the Supreme Court are bound at all times by the Constitution and possess only the powers it confers. None of those powers allows the government to suspend or violate constitutional rights by martial law or by any other means. On the contrary, as the Supreme Court explained in Milligan, “the Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances.”
The Constitution
allows Congress to suspend habeas corpus
[this writ allows persons who are unlawfully imprisoned to gain freedom through a court proceeding]but every other right it guarantees is intentionally left “forever inviolable.”
There is no constitutional procedure for suspending
the First Amendment’s protection of free expression,
the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on “unreasonable searches and seizures,”
the Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights to trial by jury and the assistance of a lawyer, or
the Fifth Amendment right not to “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
. Martial Law in the United States: Its Meaning, Its History, and Why the President Can’t Declare It
[Added bullet points to the text for clarity - no other changes, it’s a direct quote and not a paraphrase]
That same report from the Brennan center says:
This report aims to clear up the confusion that surrounds martial law. To do so, it draws on recent legal scholarship, the few rules that can be gleaned from Supreme Court precedent, and general principles of constitutional law.
It concludes that under current law, the president lacks any authority to declare martial law. Congress might be able to authorize a presidential declaration of martial law, but this has not been conclusively decided.
State officials do have the power to declare martial law, but their actions under the declaration must abide by the U.S. Constitution and are subject to review in federal court.
Outside of these general principles, there are many questions that simply cannot be answered given the sparse and confusing legal precedent.
Moreover, although lacking authority to replace civilian authorities with federal troops, the president has ample authority under current law to deploy troops to assist civilian law enforcement.
Until Congress and state legislatures enact stricter and better-defined limits, the exact scope of martial law will remain unsettled, and the president’s ability to order domestic troop deployments short of martial law will be dangerously broad.
. Martial Law in the United States: Its Meaning, Its History, and Why the President Can’t Declare It
Trump can’t close down Congress or take over the media like president Yoon did in South Korea - he can only suspend the right of insurrectionists to see a lawyer in detention - if he orders them to disperse first and they refuse
The US president doesn't have war powers like that to invoke. So Trump can't override Congress and get things done that he wanted to in the way president Yoon did.
Yoon was able to close down the South Korean parliament and take over all the media in South Korea. He briefly took over control of government and could have issued any instructions he liked, which in his case was just to get things done that the government wouldn't agree to because they didn't agree with his agenda.
QUOTE STARTS
All political activities, including the operations of the National Assembly, local assemblies, political parties, political associations, gatherings, and protests, are prohibited.
All media and publications are subject to the control of the Martial Law Command. https://www.csis.org/analysis/yoon-declares-martial-law-south-korea
That is why we saw the police stopping the legislators from going into their parliament. He tried to stop them from legislating to stop his period of martial law. But the police obeyed his instructions in a half-hearted way - the legislators were able to get through and the police later apologized for obeying his order. It was clear there wasn't any military emergency.
Yoon did have the power to do this in the SK constitution but it was a clearly illegal use of the presidential war powers. That is why he was impeached.
A US president however doesn't have any war powers like this in the US Constitution so can't do any of this.
The US Constitution can't be suspended.
Congress has only given the president very limited rights to detain insurrectionists without trial
As we saw, only one provision can be suspended, the right to see a lawyer if you are detained - that's for the duration of an insurrection. It's for practical reasons.
There may be many thousands who need to be detained in some big uprising and they can't all be given access to lawyers so for the duration of the insurrection they can be detained without trial and without access to lawyers.
However before doing that. Trump would have to order the insurrectionists to disperse peacefully. He can only detain insurrectionists if they have first been ordered to disperse and they refuse to do so - there are other ways to suspend the right to see a lawyer (habeaus corpus) but they are less plausible legally.
The insurrection act needs an insurrection to suppress
So in more detail about the Insurrection act, to debunk the fantasy - no, a president can't just invoke it without an insurrection. He or she would have to have an insurrection to disperse.
I will talk first about the normal way of invoking the act - and then talk later about the unusual option of section 532 which has hardly ever been used but was used to suppress the Klu Klux Klan and has broad and vague language - however legal experts say it needs to be construed narrowly for constitutional and practical reasons and historical precedent.
First the normal way it is invoked.
The president calls in the police first of course then the National Guard. If they can't handle it - then before the president can invoke the insurrection act he or she has to call the crowd to disperse. It is only if they don't disperse that it goes to the next stage and he can invoke the act.
So, only if the police can't handle it and the national guard can't handle it and they don't disperse when asked to, THEN the president can call on the insurrection act.
He could in principle use it in other rarer situations but let’s look at the most usual situation first.
The insurrection act only lets a president use soldiers with the duties of the police or national guard - they can’t act like soldiers fighting an enemy and all civil laws apply to them
Short summary
This ONLY lets her or him use soldiers as supplementary national guard. They are still under the civilian legal system. Normally a soldier can't arrest a civilian. That is under a bill called Posse Comitatus Act - Wikipedia
The main thing the insurrection act does is to give the soldiers the power to arrest a civilian. It gives them the powers of a national guard essentially. But any civilians they apprehend are tried under civilian, not military law.Once the insurrection is over the emergency is over.
So a president couldn't do this on their first day of office unless there is an insurrection on their first day of office.Any soldiers who are called to assist under the insurrection act do NOT operate under military law. Any actions they do are subject to civilian not military law.
His only ability is to suspend habeas corpus, the right to challenge detention without trial. That is because the large number of -people in the insurrection may overwhelm the police, they are allowed to detain people without giving them immediate access to legal defence. They can be held without access to legal defence for the duration of the emergency.
Once the emergency is over they are all released ecept that if any did anything illegal, it goes through the legal process, including the soldiers if they did anything illegal, that will go through the courts too.
A president can’t use this to change anything in how the law works. He can't use this to round up people who are not doing an insurrection.It is not possible to use martial law. That can only happen if the civilian justice system is no longer able to function which is not plausible.
What the legal code says about the act - normally to assist state authorities and sometimes for federal situations e.g. to help the capitol hill police
It is generally about the State authorities if they can't handle it. Though in some rarer cases it would be if the Federal forces can't. Some police report to the president such as the Capitol Hill police.
. United States Capitol Police - Wikipedia
The act just says whenever he "considers it necessary"
“Whenever the President considers it necessary to use the militia or the armed forces under this chapter, he shall, by proclamation, immediately order the insurgents to disperse and retire peaceably to their abodes within a limited time.”
However the situations are spelt out in more detail later.
He can do it on request from a state. to suppress an insurrection. He can also do it more generally under Federal authority to stop an insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination or conspiracy if it either (slightly shortened / paraphrase)
hinders execution of the laws of the State or of the USA within the state to such an extent that a part or class of people are deprived of their rights and the authorities of the state are unable, fail or refuse to protect that right
OROpposes the laws of the USA or the course of justice under those laws.
For the detailed legal code see screenshot.
From here: U.S. Military Operations
So basically he can do it if the authorities of the State can't handle the insurrection or refuse to handle the insurrection.
So that would be if the police as supplemented by any national guard the governor calls in can't handle it so they would be under the control of the State.
Or for the second case, for the laws of the USA or the course of justice - that would be like if Trump had decided that the Capitol Hill riots had made it impossible for Congress to function and the Capitol hill police couldn't handle it and - I suppose the national guard would be called first, then the president could declare the Capitol Hill riots as an insurrection and get in in the military as surrogate national guard at that point. Not that Trump even considered it but it seems like the sort of situation of the 2nd case.
Or - if there was an insurrection preventing the Supreme Court or the Federal Judiciary from functioning or something.
. The Insurrection Act Explained
Approximate step by step walk through of normal use of insurrection act
For an ordinary insurrection. I can't find a detailed step by step account of what happens but from filling in the gaps in what I read I think the steps are something like this
1. The police try to handle it.
2. If they can't cope the governor of the state will call in the national guard who are people with other jobs who volunteer to work as a national guard in an emergency and do some training every year.
3. If this doesn't work the governor then asks the president for help.
4. The president will invoke the insurrection act. He has to ask the insurgents to disperse.
5. If they don't disperse he can order soldiers to the scene. The reason for using soldiers is that they have large numbers of them as for a hurricane emergency so can add to the numbers of national guard available.
6. The soldiers operate under civilian, NOT martial law.
7. Normally a soldier is not permitted to arrest a civilian but during an insurrection if they are one of those ordered to help the police they can arrest civilians.
8. All civilian laws continue as before, people have their usual rights except for one thing. For the duration of the insurrection they can be detained without trial and without guaranteed access to a lawyer - this is for practical reasons because of the possible large number of insurgents.
9. Once the insurgency is over, the processes of ordinary civil law come into play and any crimes done by either the insurgents or the soldiers go through the ordinary civilian and not the criminal courts. Any insurgents who didn't commit any crimes will be released.
Other potential insurrections - president can step in if the state doesn’t agree it is an insurrection - or if the insurection is to do with impeding federal law
The president could declare an insurgency without the request of the governor, if the state doesn't do anything about it. Maybe the governor and the police join the insurgency ??.
Some insurgencies might fall within Federal jurisdiction, e.g. Capitol Hill riots then the same process except the president takes the place of the governor in step 1. And calls an insurgency if the other things don't work.
Section 253 of the insurrection legislation - agreement that it is “so bafflingly broad it can’t mean what it seems to say”
This is still only about conditions where insurrecitonists can be temporarily detained without trial. But section 253 is so broad that the language would seem to permit just two people conspiring together to break a federal law as an insurrectrion.
However legal opinon is that this can’t be what it really means.
To count as an insurgency it must (slight paraphrase
1. hinder execution of the laws of the State or of the USA within the state to such an extent that a part or class of people are deprived of their rights and the authorities of the state are unable, fail or refuse to protect that right ...
OR
2. Oppose the laws of the USA or the course of justice under those laws.
[I suppose that would be something like occupying the Supreme Court? for 2.]
For the detailed legal code see here: U.S. Military Operations
In the Federal law case it does have a vague introduction:
QUOTE STARTS
The second part of Section 253 permits the president to deploy troops to suppress “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy” in a state that “opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.” This provision is so bafflingly broad that it cannot possibly mean what it says, or else it authorizes the president to use the military against any two people conspiring to break federal law.
…
Nothing in the text of the Insurrection Act defines “insurrection,” “rebellion,” “domestic violence,” or any of the other key terms used in setting forth the prerequisites for deployment. Absent statutory guidance, the Supreme Court decided early on that this question is for the president alone to decide. In the 1827 case Martin v. Mott, the Court ruled that “the authority to decide whether [an exigency requiring the militia to be called out] has arisen belongs exclusively to the President, and . . . his decision is conclusive upon all other persons.”
However, while this precedent might prevent judges from second-guessing whether the president is allowed to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to a given situation, the Supreme Court clarified in Sterling v. Constantin (1932) that courts may still review the lawfulness of the military’s actions once deployed. In other words, federal troops are not free to violate other laws or trample on constitutional rights just because the president has invoked the Insurrection Act.
The Brennan center have a page about the Insurrection act which goes into these issues. It is arguing the need to strengthen the law to clarify the vagueness in the insurrection act.
. The Insurrection Act: A Presidential Power That Threatens Democracy
It was always going to be hard to modify the act and there is no way Biden can make those changes requested by the Brennan center in his last "Lame Duck" session with a Republican controlled house.
There are some things he can do by way of executive order that could help in principle but it's not too likely he does that either. But there are lots of reasons for courts to interpret the text narrowly.
In more detail from a legal opinion suggesting the need to strengthen the law here, there is a summary section of Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinions on the Insurrection Act so far:
QUOTE STARTS
Prior OLC opinions have suggested that the statute should be interpreted in light of various constitutional provisions, such as the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supremacy Clause, and Article IV, Section IV, which authorizes the federal government to protect the states (upon request) against “domestic violence.”
It is true that the Supreme Court in Martin v. Mott has said that the President’s has a measure of latitude in determining whether the factual predicate for the statute is satisfied, but the Court made that statement in the narrow context of concluding that a citizen could be court-martialed for failure to report to the New York militia when the President had called it up during the War of 1812.
And OLC has indicated that the statutory text should be read narrowly; for example, absent the need to enforce a federal court order—in which case the Supremacy Clause would provide added authority for the use of troops—the President cannot invoke the Act except in “situations where state and local law enforcement have completely broken down.”
In addition, OLC opinions have noted that it is historical practice and tradition for Presidents to invoke Sections 252 and 253 only as a “last resort.” This reference to tradition echoes Justice’s Frankfurter’s concurrence in Youngstown, suggesting that the “gloss” of history should inform the scope of executive power.
. Protecting the U.S. National Security State from a Rogue President
That legal analysis talks about changes Congress could make to clarify the law as well as various things that the OLC could do to help restrain a future president and that a president could do too, by way of executive orders that might later be codified into law by Congress.
Constitutional and practical reasons for justices to construe section 253 narrowly
This is another legal analysis of it which says that though it is vague and broad there -are constitutional and practical reasons to construe it narrowly:
QUOTE STARTS
The Insurrection Act is an important exception. Although little-known and (fortunately) used sparingly, the act gives the president potentially broad authority to use the military to protect the country from threats inside the United States. While such a power can be crucial in times of genuine crisis, it also poses a serious risk of abuse. For example, former President Trump has suggested that, if elected, he would invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy the military to quell protests around the country, provide security at the southern border, and aid in deporting noncitizens. Democratic presidents too might be tempted to use the Insurrection Act against perceived domestic threats.
Unfortunately, the language of the act is vague and overbroad, and many experts from across the political spectrum have rightly called on Congress to revise the text. In an article forthcoming in the Harvard National Security Journal, I survey these proposed legislative reforms and argue in favor of many of them (along with reforms to other areas of the U.S. national security legal framework).
But even without amendments to the act, the statutory text, as it stands, can and should be read narrowly, for both constitutional and practical reasons. Indeed, executive branch officials themselves have long argued, in a variety of contexts, that the act must be understood to be limited in scope if it is to conform to the constitutional scheme. Practical concerns are also likely to arise if a president were to invoke the act, concerns that surfaced during a recent series of national security scenario planning exercises in which I participated.
Run by the Brennan Center for Justice this summer, the “Democracy Futures Project” convened bipartisan groups of former senior government officials and other experts to game out the consequences if a future president attempted to use the Insurrection Act. Perhaps unsurprisingly, those consequences were disturbing for anyone interested in the future of democratic government.
Perhaps the most concerning provision is Section 253, which allows the president to act if the president deems it “necessary to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy” if it “(i) so hinders the execution of the laws of that State, and of the United States within the State, that any part or class of its people is deprived of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution … and the constituted authorities of that State are unable, fail, or refuse to protect” the above; or “(ii) opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.” Congress added this subsection after the Civil War to address widespread violence and attacks on the Black population led by the Ku Klux Klan.
But it is particularly broad and vague, and could in theory encompass even relatively minor obstructions to the “execution of the laws” of the United States or impediments to “the course of justice” under those laws, such as a small protest interfering with law enforcement activities or judicial proceedings, so long as there were a conspiracy to do so by two or more persons. (It is worth noting, however, that even this seemingly broad language would appear to require some obstruction of law enforcement and is focused on violations of federal, rather than state, law.)
This is about how there is a strong case for reading it narrowly.
QUOTE STARTS
While legislative reforms would be helpful, a strong case can be made that the existing language of the Insurrection Act should be read narrowly, for both constitutional and practical reasons.
In fact, U.S. executive branch lawyers have long made arguments along these lines. As a 1964 Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memo put it, although the provisions of the act may “appear on their face to confer broad authority to use troops to enforce federal law generally, whenever the President deems it necessary,” they are nonetheless “limited … by the Constitution and by tradition.”
In another example, a 1975 Justice Department memo observed that these provisions should be invoked only as a “last resort,” language that can also be found in the 1964 memo.
More recently, during the Trump administration, Attorney General William Barr advised against the use of the act to respond to protests that erupted after the death of George Floyd. And in the same context, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reportedly “recoiled at the idea” of deploying the military under the act and, using language echoing the memos described above, argued that the act should be invoked only as a “last resort,” conditions that he urged were not present at that time.
. How the Insurrection Act (Properly Understood) Limits Domestic Deployments of the U.S. Military
General Milley’s response there also suggests the military might refuse from their own side to obey the president’s orders. If they are unconstitutional or illegal and they know they are, they have to refuse them.
The Supreme Court ruled that its decision that permitted the Japanese internment camps of WW2 in the USA was gravely wrong on the day it was decided
Even with a war declared it is not permitted to intern US citizens according to nationality. That is the Supreme Court decision in Trump v. Hawaii (2018), fully overturning and expunging from their decisions in Korematsu v. United States.
Perhaps the most egregious use of presidential emergency power was President Franklin Roosevelt’s executive order during World War II authorizing the segregation of military zones within the United States, an order that served as the basis for multiple military orders forcing more than 110,000 individuals of Japanese descent, including 70,000 U.S. citizens, into internment camps.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld this assertion of presidential emergency power in Korematsu v. United States.
Subsequently, however, Congress acknowledged the wrongs effected by the exclusion orders, enacting a law in 1948 authorizing payment of up to $100,000 to each internee, and, in 1988 issuing an apology and authorizing an additional $20,000 to be paid.
President Gerald Ford revoked the executive order that was the basis for the 20 exclusion orders in 1976, and President George H. W. Bush formally apologized for the injustices of the internment in 1990.
One of the most strongly criticized cases in U.S. history, Korematsu was finally repudiated by the U.S. Supreme Court decades later in Trump v. Hawaii, when Justice Roberts’ majority opinion took the occasion “to make express what is already obvious: Korematsu was gravely wrong the day it was decided, has been overruled in the court of history, and—to be clear—has no place in law under the Constitution.”
. Protecting the U.S. National Security State from a Rogue President
Military oath of office - primarily to the US constitution
I talk about the military oath of office here where I talk about how a civil war can't happen again.
. Why the US civil war can't happen again
They do have an oath to the president. But their primary oath is to the constitution. They then have an oath to the president and to follow the orders he is authorized to give under the constitution. It is not an oath of personal loyalty to the president as a person but to him as the acting president as authorized under the constitution.
General Milley about his commitment to uphold the US constitution and about how US soldiers defend that document with their lives and their allegiance is to the US constitution not to any dictator or wannabe dictator
This is how General Milley during his retirement ceremony in response to a dumb thing Trump said to him that showed that Trump didn't understand the US constitution:
At 35:20 in
But today is not about anybody up here on this stage. It is not about the president, the secretary of defence, me, C.Q. It is not about us.
It is about our democracy, it is about our republic, it is about the colours posted behind me. It is about the ideas and the values that make up this great experiment in liberty. Those values and ideas are contained within the constitution of America, which is the moral north star for all of us who have the privilege of wearing the cloth of our nation.
It is that document, the idea that is America, it is that document that gives purpose to our service. It is that document that gives purpose to our lives. It is that document that all of us in uniform swear to to protect and defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
That has been true across generations and we in uniform are willing to die to pass that document off to the next generation. So, it is that document that gives ultimate purpose to our death.
The moto of our country is E. Pluribus Unum. From the many come one. We are one nation under God. We are indivisible, with liberty for all.
And the motto of our army for over 200 years since 4th July 1775 when a company of Pennsylvanian riflemen formed it, the motto has been "This we'll defend". And that "this" refers to the constitution. The constitution of the United States. That we the people in order to form a more perfect union, to protect the liberty of this country.
You see, we in uniform are unique. We are unique amongst the world's armies. We are unique amongst the world's militaries.
We don't take an oath to a country. We don't take an oath to a tribe. We don't take an oath to a religion. We don't take an oath to a King or a Queen or to a tyrant or a dictator and we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We don't take an oath to an individual.
We take an oath to the constitution and we take an oath to the idea that is America and we're willing to die to protect it. Every soldier, sailor, airman, marine, guardsmen and coastguardsmen, each of us commits our very life to protect and defend that document, regardless of personal price. And we are not easily intimidated.
Speech starts at 1:21:00 here, the quote starts at 1:35:20 U.S. Constitution at Center of Military Transfer of Responsibility Ceremony
Here is the last part of that section of the transcript
And video:
This is the oath he talks about:
"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."
. oaths
The Uniform Code of Military Justice which is the legal framework for military command in the US .
. The Uniform Code of Military Justice
The background here is that General Milley was responding to Trump who said he deserves the death penalty for his lack of personal loyalty to Trump.
It is about a couple of calls General Milley made to China's top general Li Zuocheng during the last few months when Trump was being erratic after he'd been voted out as president. Intelligence reports said China believed the US was going to attack them. Milley made a direct call to Li reassuring him that the US was not considering a strike. That happened again after the Jan 06 riots, again he told Li that the US is “100 percent steady” even though “things may look unsteady.”
QUOTE Milley made two backchannel calls to China’s top general, Li Zuocheng, that were revealed in “Peril,” the 2021 book by journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. In October 2020, as intelligence suggested China believed the US was going to attack them, Milley sought to calm Li by reassuring him that the US was not considering a strike, according to the book. Milley called again two days after the January 6 riot at the US Capitol to tell Li that the US is “100 percent steady” even though “things may look unsteady.”
. Milley says Trump disrespected US military with execution comment | CNN Politics
When he heard about this, Trump said
QUOTE "This guy turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States. This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH! A war between China and the United States could have been the result of this treasonous act."
. Milley says Trump disrespected US military with execution comment | CNN Politics
When asked about Trump’s response, Milley said
QUOTE “If we’re willing to die for that document, if we’re willing to deploy to combat, if we’re willing to lose an arm, a leg, an eye, to protect and support and defend that document and protect the American people, then we are willing to live for it, too.” Asked by O’Donnell if there was “anything inappropriate or treasonous” about the outreach to China, Milley replied, “absolutely not. Zero. None.”
. Milley says Trump disrespected US military with execution comment | CNN Politics
Another comment by Milley on Trump’s response:
QUOTE STARTS asked about the comments during an interview on CBS' 60 Minutes, Milley said in a clip released on Wednesday: "I've been faithful and loyal to the constitution of the United States for 44 and a half years."
He added: "I've got adequate safety precautions. I wish those comments had not been made, but they were. And I'll take appropriate measures to ensure my safety and the safety of my family."
. Top US general taking steps to protect family after Trump death comments
Here it is Trump who hasn't understood the role of a president. Generals, soldiers, officers, don't have any personal loyalty to the president. They take an oath to follow his orders, but not to him personally but to him as the head of the executive and the acting president of the US under the US Constitution. Their first duty is to the US constitution and the president can only order them to do things within the limits of what he is authorized to do by the US constitution.
Trump never seems to have got the hang of how the US Constitution works or what his role is as president which is why he kept getting frustrated when things didn't work as he expected.
Why Trump can’t do these things - us constitution and justice system prevents it
Trump never truly understood how the Constitution worked when he was president and he kept doing executive orders that were thrown out by the courts.
He also tried to pass things through Congress such as funding for his wall that was blocked by Congress even when he had a Republican-dominated Congress with control of both House and Senate.
He sees the role of president as like the role of the CEO of a company but it isn't.
He surrounds himself with dubious lawyers who tell him what he wants to hear, but it is mistaken. He can't do these things.
A president can't change a word of the Constitution or of the American legal code.
A president can appoint members of the executive and if he chooses the right people he might get people loyal enough to him to break the law in order to follow his orders - but then those cases will go through the courts.
And as we saw with all his attempts to challenge the election results in 2020, the courts even when the Supreme Court is dominated by justices he himself appointed and even when he is judged by justices he himself selected, he still loses all his cases when they go against the US constitution or the US legal code.
Trump can't do these things legally because the justices will stop him. He can't do them illegally through military force because the military will refuse to obey illegal and non-constitutional orders even from a president. They are required to refuse such orders by their oath of office. And a general will have a legal team to advise him on the legality and constitutionality of any unusual order from a wannabe dictator president.
Also he can't force new laws through with a far right agenda because he won't be able to get a majority far right Congress. He can't do it in the Senate as only a third are up for election every time.
He can't do it in the House because people just will not vote for that many far right politicians, he'd lose all the moderate / swing state seats. He needs both House and Senate to change the legal code.
As for changing even one word of the US Constitution, he needs 3/4 of the state legislatures to approve it at the end of a long process. That is utterly impossible for a fascist constitution.All this does is to alienate the moderates meaning Trump or far right presidential candidates would have no chance of the presidency and any candidates for the house with a far right agenda will only be elected in far right states.
The courts are quick to grant a stay of execution to stop a policy until they can investigate it. That happened with many of Trump's executive orders.
The DoJ can only bring out cases. Many of the people he wants to target could afford the legal fees, the ones that can't would likely be able to access legal aid.
. Legal aid in the United States - Wikipedia
In short, Trump can’t turn the US constitution into a fascist constitution and can’t change even a word of the US legal code. He can’t order the military to do illegal things. He can order the executive to do illegal things but most people would refuse, either because of ethics or because they know they risk ending up in prison if they obey his orders.
That leaves people who are so loyal to Trump they will follow an illegal order even when they know they risk being put in prison for obeying it. He may be able to surround himself with a few like that. But even then, the justices would immediately put a stay on their illegal actions while the cases go through the courts.
We saw this during his first term. So many times he tried to do something and was stopped by the courts. This continued all the way through to the end of his firt term.
He thinks that for some reason he now knows how to avoid all those problems and act illegally with impunity but it is nonsense. it is still impossible as we see over and over.
Contents
Congress has only given the president very limited rights to detain insurrectionists without trial
Why Trump can’t do these things - US constitution and justice system prevents it
See also
The media is protected in the USA by the first amendment. So he can’t close down the press either like Hitler did.
. The Press in the Third Reich
So I hope this brings some clarity in this topic area.
Done this as a top level post so that I can link to it from other post here.
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FOR MORE HELP
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CLICK HERE TO SEARCH: List of articles in my Debunking Doomsday blog to date
NEW SHORT DEBUNKS
I do many more fact checks and debunks on our facebook group than I could ever write up as blog posts. They are shorter and less polished but there is a good chance you may find a short debunk for some recent concern.
See Latest short debunks for new short debunks
I also do tweets about them. I also tweet the debunks and short debunks to my Blue Sky page here:
Then on the Doomsday Debunked wiki, see my Short Debunks page which is a single page of all the earlier short debunks in one page.
I do the short debunks more often but they are less polished - they are copies of my longer replies to scared people in the Facebook group.rough Ukraine and will do so no matter what its allies do to support Ukraine.
TIPS FOR DEALING WITH DOOMSDAY FEARS
If suicidal or helping someone suicidal see my:
BLOG: Supporting someone who is suicidal
If you have got scared by any of this, health professionals can help. Many of those affected do get help and find it makes a big difference.
They can’t do fact checking, don’t expect that of them. But they can do a huge amount to help with the panic, anxiety, maladaptive responses to fear and so on.
Also do remember that therapy is not like physical medicine. The only way a therapist can diagnose or indeed treat you is by talking to you and listening to you. If this dialogue isn’t working for whatever reason do remember you can always ask to change to another therapist and it doesn’t reflect badly on your current therapist to do this.
Also check out my Seven tips for dealing with doomsday fears based on things that help those scared, including a section about ways that health professionals can help you.
I know that sadly many of the people we help can’t access therapy for one reason or another - usually long waiting lists or the costs.
There is much you can do to help yourself. As well as those seven tips, see my:
BLOG: Breathe in and out slowly and deeply and other ways to calm a panic attack
BLOG: Tips from CBT
— might help some of you to deal with doomsday anxieties