Byron York’s Daily Memo: Dangerous talk about the election and the military

DANGEROUS TALK ABOUT THE ELECTION AND THE MILITARY. There has been a lot of commentary in recent days about President Trump, the election, and martial law. It is unclear what the president himself thinks about it — he tweeted Saturday night that reports were “fake news” and “knowingly bad reporting” — but it is clear that his former national security adviser, retired General Michael Flynn, is expressing views about a possible military role in the election that are reckless and alarming.

In short, Flynn has floated the idea of Trump seizing voting machines from around the country and sending the military into some key states to “re-run” the presidential election. The fact that Flynn, who is known for both his distinguished military career and for being railroaded by zealous Democrats targeting the president in the Trump-Russia investigation — the fact that he would discuss such actions as a viable option for Trump is both stunning and outrageous. Despite real concerns about some localized irregularities, there is no aspect of the current election — Joe Biden’s victory has been certified in the states and formalized in the Electoral College — that would justify any such action. For the president to follow Flynn’s counsel would be disastrous, both for the country and for Trump himself.

Flynn discussed the matter on Newsmax on December 17. He said the president has “a couple of options that he can take, and he needs to take them. He needs to take them right now.” First, Flynn said, Trump “needs to appoint a special counsel immediately” to investigate the election. Then, the president “needs to seize these Dominion and other voting machines that we have across the country.” Doing so, Flynn claimed, would allow the president to discover “a foreign influence that is tied” to voting systems used in the election. Flynn mentioned China, Russia, Iran, and Venezuela as possibly having been involved.

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At that point, Newsmax anchor Greg Kelly teed up the military question for Flynn. “So I hear some murmurings,” Kelly said, “you know, about the staff shakeup at the Pentagon. They’re putting people in place who might not be opposed to aggressive action, and the president does have some options, at least on paper. Can you tell us what those options are and your opinion if he might take any of them?”

“I don’t know if he’s going to take any of these options,” Flynn said. “The president has to plan for every eventuality, because we cannot allow this election and the integrity of our election, to go the way it is. This is just totally unsatisfactory. There is no way in the world that we are going to be able to move forward as a nation with this. So the president — I just mentioned one of the options. He could immediately, on his order, seize every single one of these machines around the country, on his order.”

Flynn did not say how, precisely, Trump would seize every voting machine from around the country, or even just every Dominion voting machine. But he then outlined a possibility for military action. “[Trump] could also order, within the swing states, if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities and he could place them in those states and basically re-run an election in each of these states. I mean, it’s not unprecedented. I mean, these people out there talking about martial law, it’s like it’s something that we’ve never done before. We’ve done — martial law has been instituted 64 times.” A look at the historical record shows that martial law has in fact been declared more than 60 times, almost always by governors, in states over the years, but there is no precedent for a presidential action like Flynn was discussing.

It was a jaw-dropping moment. The fact that it came from a military man was particularly troubling. Flynn, a retired three-star general, did not have the screen presence of Burt Lancaster, who, in the 1960s coup melodrama Seven Days in May, played a general railing about the weakness of the nation’s political leadership. But Flynn nevertheless evoked the movie as he went on to blame the current situation on what he perceived as the weakness of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, of the Court as a whole, and of the Republican Party.

“I’m not calling for that,” Flynn said of the military option he just outlined. “We have a constitutional process. We clearly have a constitutional process…that has to be followed. But I will tell you that I’m a little concerned about Chief Justice John Roberts at the Supreme Court. We can’t fool around with the fabric of the Constitution of the United States. And I think that right now, the Constitution, if the Supreme Court doesn’t get involved in at least making sure that the fabric of that Constitution is held together…all they have to do is look at the evidence. They have to look at the evidence. I’m not certain, in fact I don’t believe, that the Supreme Court of the United States has even looked at the merit of any of the cases that have been put forward yet. What they’ve been looking at is process files, whether somebody crossed the t or dotted an i. That is unsatisfactory. To me that lacks courage, that lacks moral fiber within the chief justice and frankly within the members of the Supreme Court.” Flynn went on to express his dissatisfaction with the Republican Party and urge its leaders to “stand up and fight for this president.”

Now there are reports that Flynn and Sidney Powell, the lawyer who represented Flynn in the Mueller investigation and is now pressing the case that there was foreign interference and hacking in the 2020 election, were at the White House on Friday — the day after Flynn outlined his thoughts on Newsmax. The New York Times reported that the topic of martial law was raised in the White House discussion but that it was strongly opposed by the president’s top aides.

The talk about Flynn’s ideas has gotten so much attention that Army leaders put out a statement Friday saying, “There is no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of an American election.”

What to make of it all? Was it just talk? Throughout his presidency Trump’s critics have failed — or refused — to distinguish between the things the president sometimes says and the things he actually does. It is fair to say there is no chance that martial law will be declared and the election results overturned. It is easy to imagine the president saying to someone: They say I should seize the voting machines. What do you think? That’s the way Trump has discussed many, many other topics during his time in office. At the same time, Trump has also shown repeatedly that his talk is just talk. “Despite his alarming rhetoric, Trump has complied consistently with court decisions and worked within the legal system,” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley wrote in discussing the martial law story.

But if it was just talk, what about the idea that there are some things that one just doesn’t talk about? Having the military intervene in a U.S. election seems like one of those things — especially if it is the commander-in-chief doing the talking. On the other hand, we don’t know precisely what Trump said. But we do know what General Flynn said on Newsmax, and it was far outside the bounds of reasonable discussion.

Flynn’s words were also an embarrassment for many who had defended him, or more specifically criticized the treatment he received at the hands of the FBI and Trump-Russia special counsel Robert Mueller. Flynn’s presentation on Newsmax was “an outrageous and reckless statement that was tantamount to a call for tyranny,” Turley wrote. “For those of us who defended Flynn over his abusive prosecution, it was also a disappointment that someone who has long defended this country would embrace such an anti-democratic call. Frankly, Trump should have reminded Flynn that he is speaking to the President of the United States in the Oval Office and such a suggestion is wildly offensive and unhinged.”

No, Flynn’s stance on the election does not change the fact that he was wrongly treated in the Trump-Russia matter. That is what it is. But now Flynn, speaking after the president pardoned him and thus gave him the freedom to speak out, is promoting an “unhinged” idea about military intervention in the election that, if the president tried to act on it, would be a catastrophe for all involved. Flynn complained that the leaders of the Republican Party would not support such an action. That is correct. They won’t, and no one else should, either.