Trump Aides Prepared Insurrection Act Order During Debate Over Protests

[brooklynite]

Source: New York Times

Responding to interest from President Donald J. Trump, White House aides drafted a proclamation last year to invoke the Insurrection Act in case Mr. Trump moved to take the extraordinary step of deploying active-duty troops in Washington to quell the protests that followed the killing of George Floyd, two senior Trump administration officials said.

The aides drafted the proclamation on June 1, 2020, during a heated debate inside the administration over how to respond to the protests. Mr. Trump, enraged by the demonstrations, had told the attorney general, William P. Barr, the defense secretary, Mark T. Esper, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, that he wanted thousands of active-duty troops on the streets of the nation’s capital, one of the officials said.

Mr. Trump was talked out of the plan by the three officials. But a separate group of White House staff members wanted to leave open the option for Mr. Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act to call in the military to patrol the streets of the capital.

They decided it would be prudent to have the necessary document vetted and ready in case the unrest in Washington worsened or the city’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, declined to take measures such as a citywide curfew, which she ultimately put in place.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/25/us/politics/trump-insurrection-act-protests.html

[Layzeebeaver]

1. Statehood is the cure for this.

It has to happen.

[groundloop]

2. 45* WANTED this to happen

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Really! The ideas are all there, all he had to do was flip them to suit his self-interest

Insurrection???? Over civil rights protests????? Bizarre. Again I say, up until Jan 6 this year, you hadn't heard the word 'insurrection' in decades. It wasn't even floated to describe the classic insurrection, the October Revolution and seizure of power in Russia by the Bolsheviks.

Inside Job!!!!

[Delmette2.0]

4. Unnamed other White House staff?

Who the F*** are those people?

[gopiscrap]

5. probably Stephan Miller, Jared Don, Eric and Ivanka

[bucolic_frolic]

6. +1

"a separate group of White House staff members" ... well not cabinet, not military or DOJ apparently. Would be - my guess - from the rest of the most senior staff ... Jared ... was Hope Hicks still there? In my mind it has Steven Miller written all over it.

[bucolic_frolic]

7. What a bombshell of an OP! On a Friday evening news drop. Insurrection discussed July 2020

in another context. You can't make this stuff up.

[Deminpenn]

8. It's all coming out now, isn't it?

nt

[gab13by13]

9. Remember back then,

how many said the election was over and there was nothing MF45 could do to change the outcome. Remember?

Those traitors don't follow the law, don't follow the Constitution. We need to stop thinking as if these insurrectionists are bound by laws, let alone bound by norms.

We came damn close to losing our democracy.

Thank god Speaker Pelosi insisted they return that same night to certify the election. Speaker Pelosi saved our democracy, for now.

[Evolve Dammit]

10. Well said.

[ancianita]

11. And who were the aiding & abetting White House staffers who drafted the insurrection proclamation?

Why no names in the article? That's a serious action to be presented as hearsay, since no source is cited for that claim.

Good lord, what a desperate hot mess was going on, and what a real indicator it was of the fear and disgust they felt for protesting Americans.

And now trumpcult rallies could well become a whole new flashpoint of crazy, while law enforcement just stands by as alt-right media roll out its new narratives.

To relive those days fills me with dread.

[HUAJIAO]

12. Pure evil and deeply mentally disturbed.. a BAD combination.

[LudwigPastorius]

13. Calling him Fat Hitler was...

not hyperbole.

Even beyond his blatant dismissal of the rights enshrined in our Constitution, Trump does not see other people as human, only objects that are to be used to gratify his ego, and those that refuse to do so, are to be destroyed.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

14. K&R