6 was an inside job with Trump advisers, his campaign and donors among the organizers and participants. 7 speech, which ended with the chilling sentence "our incredible journey is only beginning," as another version of the " stand back and stand by" comment he addressed to the Proud Boys during a September 2020 debate with Biden.Īll those networks of coup planning will likely come into focus during the House committee hearings, as will the desired endgame of Trump's machinations: a takeover of government straight out of authoritarian history. It's not surprising that some extremists seemed to have understood his Jan. He watched the violence unfold on television. 6 assault on the halls of power began, Trump was nowhere to be found. Martial law has been declared 68 times in the past, according to a law center report, though never for the reasons some of President Trumps supporters are advocating for now. 6 to "stop the steal" and rescue him from defeat by blocking the Electoral College certification of Biden's victory. They called on militia members, white supremacists and other extremists to come to Washington on Jan. That is why, with the military and electoral options looking less viable, Trump's extremist inner circle channeled early fascism and its credo of bringing about political change through violent action. Flynn's efforts to drum up Republican support for martial law prompted a warning from 10 former defense secretaries that military involvement in elections "would take us into dangerous, unlawful, and unconstitutional territory." 1, a week before Trump pardoned him, Flynn retweeted an ad from a group called We The People Convention, which asked Trump to suspend the Constitution so the military could oversee a new election. Mark Milley, in a Veterans Day address at the National Museum of the United States Army, made a point of saying that the military does not take an oath to any individual, "king or queen, or tyrant or dictator," but only to the Constitution. Days later, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. That is why Esper, who had resisted deploying active-duty troops against racial justice protesters, had to go. Get expert analysis in real-time on our live blog at /jan6hearings.įirst, Trump evoked the tradition of military coups by considering martial law and exploring the idea of using the military to facilitate a re-run of the election. 6 committee is kicking off the first of its public hearings on Thursday, June 9 at 8 p.m. 9 firing of Defense Secretary Mark Esper and bringing back in far-right operatives such as General Michael Flynn, Roger Stone and Steve Bannon, Trump created a circle of hard-core loyalists willing to do anything to keep their leader in the White House. By purging his inner sanctum, starting with that Nov. 3, 2020 election created the circumstances for actions that, though exceptional in American history, have always been typical moves for autocrats who are trying to avoid leaving office. Trump's refusal to accept the results of the Nov.
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