Pentagon officials discuss response if Trump issues controversial orders

Pentagon officials are holding informal discussions about how the Defense Department would respond if incoming President Donald Trump orders the deployment of active-duty troops and lays off large swaths of the department's workforce.

Photo caption — Donald Trump speaks to supporters at the Palm Beach Convention Center, Florida, November 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/TTXVN

Mr Trump has indicated that he would be open to using active duty forces to enforce domestic law in an effort to deport immigrants en masse, saying he wants to use loyalists and “clean up the corruption” in the national security system. During his presidency, Mr Trump had a strained relationship with many of his senior military leaders, including retired General Mark Milley, who took steps to limit the president’s ability to use nuclear weapons while he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Meanwhile, President-elect Trump has repeatedly described US military leaders as “weak” and “ineffective leaders”. Dealing with a Pentagon “shakeup” Officials are now working through various scenarios as they prepare for a “shakeup” of the Pentagon from Mr Trump. “We’re all preparing and planning for the worst-case scenario, but the reality is we don’t know how this will play out,” said one defense official. Trump’s election has also raised questions about what would happen at the Pentagon if the president issued an illegal order, especially if his political appointees in the Defense Department did not object. “The military is legally bound to disobey illegal orders,” said another defense official. “But the question is what happens after that — do we see senior military leaders resign? Or is it seen as abandoning their people?” It remains unclear who President-elect Trump will pick to lead the Pentagon, although officials believe he and his team will try to avoid the strained relationship he had with the military during the previous administration, according to a former defense official with experience in the first Trump administration. “The relationship between the White House and the Department of Defense has been really bad, and so I know that’s going to be the most important thing when they’re choosing who they put into the Department of Defense this time,” the former official said. Defense officials are also trying to identify civilian employees who could be affected if Trump reinstates Schedule F, an executive order he first issued in 2020 that would reclassify a large number of non-political federal employees across the government to make them more vulnerable to firing. The ability to bring troops into the streets In addition, many top defense officials are concerned about how Mr. Trump plans to use American military power at home. Last month, Mr. Trump said the military should be used to deal with what he called “the enemy within” and “left-wing lunatics.”

“I think if it’s necessary, the National Guard will easily handle it, or if it’s absolutely necessary, the military will handle it, because they can’t let that happen,” he added, referring to potential protests on Election Day. Several former senior military officials who served under Trump have warned in recent years about his decisions, including Milley and retired Gen. John Kelly, Trump’s former White House chief of staff. There’s little the Pentagon can do to protect the force from potential abuses of power by a commander in chief. Defense Department lawyers can and do advise military leaders on the legality of orders, but there’s no real legal protection to stop Trump from deploying American troops to patrol the country’s streets. A former senior Defense Department official who served under Trump said he believed it was likely that additional active-duty forces would be assigned to support Customs and Border Protection at the southern border. There are already thousands of active-duty forces at the border, including active-duty, National Guard and Reserve members. The Biden administration sent 1,500 active-duty troops last year and has since sent several hundred more. But the former official said it was also possible that forces could be sent to U.S. cities if asked to support the mass deportation plan that Trump repeatedly touted during the campaign.

Trump said domestic law enforcement agencies "don't have the manpower, they don't have the helicopters, they don't have the trucks, they don't have the expeditionary capability" that the military provides. But he stressed that a decision to put active-duty troops on American streets would be considered carefully. "You can never take that lightly, you can never seriously say it's not a big deal. It's a big deal," the former senior official said. Another military official told CNN that they could imagine the incoming Trump administration ordering a few thousand more troops to support border duties, but warned that it could compromise the military's readiness to respond to foreign threats. The president's authority would be particularly broad if Trump invoked the Insurrection Act, which states that in limited circumstances involving the protection of constitutional rights, the president can unilaterally deploy the military domestically. Civilians at risk In a video posted last year, Mr. Trump said that if elected, he would “immediately reissue my 2020 Executive Order, restoring the president’s authority to remove rogue officials… We are going to purge all of the corrupt people in our national security and intelligence apparatus, and there are a lot of them.” The Pentagon has been preparing for such a policy change. “My emails have been flooded on this topic,” a defense official said of Schedule F. “It’s definitely going to be a busy couple of months.” After Mr. Trump first issued Schedule F, at the end of his final term, the Pentagon and other federal agencies were tasked with creating a list of employees who would be moved into that removal category. The department is currently creating a similar list. The Office of Personnel and Management issued a regulation in April that strengthened protections for federal employees. But “there are still ways a new administration could address these protections,” a defense official said.

Thu Hang/Tin Tuc Newspaper (According to CNN)

Source: https://baotintuc.vn/the-gioi/gioi-chuc-lau-nam-goc-ban-cach-ung-pho-neu-ong-trump-ban-hanh-cac-lenh-gay-tranh-cai-20241109161919729.htm