Trump thought of martial law in US: ex-defence secretary

WASHINGTON: Former US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has said that President Trump wanted to impose martial law in the country.

“Throughout his tenure, but especially since losing the election in November, President Trump has proven himself dangerously erratic and volatile, talking with advisers about invoking the Insurrection Act and declaring martial law to rerun the election, and provoking his supporters into that shameless scene we saw at the Capitol this week,” he said.

Along with every other living former secretary of defense, from both Republican and Democratic administrations, Hagel felt alarmed enough about Trump’s behaviour to recently sign a letter calling for a peaceful transition of power to the incoming Biden administration, and insisting that the US military has no role in determining the outcome of US elections.

Those critical hours on the afternoon of Jan 6, 2021, when senior political and military officials tacitly acknowledged with their actions that the chain of command had been broken at the top, reveal the great peril the nation still finds itself in from an increasingly erratic and borderline delusional commander in chief. It is reminiscent of the final days of another unstable president — Richard Nixon — when Defense Secretary James Schlesinger instructed uniformed military leaders to check with him before executing any direct orders from the commander in chief involving nuclear weapons.

“In light of the storming of the Capitol building by Trump supporters, enough doubt has now been cast on the competence and fitness of the president that I’m sure the question is being asked whether a ‘Schlesinger’-type check is necessary,” retired Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni, former commander of US Central Command, told a foreign media outlet. “Before they execute any order that comes directly from President Trump in the next 13 days, the Joint Chiefs chairman and combatant commanders will first want legal verification that it is a lawful order, because they can disobey an illegal order.”

In fact, the question was raised by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who called Milley on Friday to discuss precautions to prevent Trump from accessing the nuclear launch codes.

Gen. John Kelly, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, added his voice to a chorus of political leaders on Capitol Hill calling for invoking the 25th Amendment to immediately remove Trump from office and put the levers of power — including the one that controls the military — out of his reach.

“By all accounts Trump is angry and increasingly isolated in the White House, with many of his top staff either resigning or thinking about resigning, to include Cabinet officials and his deputy national security adviser and national security adviser, which suggests that he is in a very unstable mindset and not taking counsel from anyone,” said Hagel. “Remember that he is still the commander in chief of the armed forces, with immense powers, and no one can now be sure what this president is capable of. That’s a very dangerous situation.”

Zinni noted that military commanders “can also first seek advice from an array of civilian leaders, to include the service secretaries, the secretary of defense and the vice president.

Though they are not in the direct chain of command, senior leaders in Congress would also likely be consulted before any such order involving significant military force was executed.”

In light of rising tensions in the Persian Gulf region with Iran, a number of senior national security experts are also worried about a “wag the dog” scenario in which Trump seeks to distract from a disastrous week and burnish his damaged legacy with a military strike against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Withdrawing the United States from the Iran nuclear accord is a major part of his foreign policy legacy, one he knows Biden plans to reverse.