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[QUOTE]WASHINGTON — Donald Trump is sparking fears among those who understand the inner workings of the Pentagon that he would convert the nonpartisan U.S. military into the muscular arm of his political agenda as he makes comments about dictatorship and devalues the checks and balances that underpin the nation’s two-century-old democracy.

A circle of appointees independent of Trump’s political operation steered him away from ideas that would have pushed the limits of presidential power in his last term, according to books they’ve written and testimony given to Congress. Most were gone by the end. In a new term, many former officials worry that Trump would instead surround himself with loyalists unwilling to say no.

Trump has raised fresh questions about his intentions if he regains power by putting forward a legal theory that a president would be free to do nearly anything with impunity —[b]including assassinate political rivals[/b]— so long as Congress can’t muster the votes to impeach him and throw him out of office.

[b]Now, bracing for Trump’s potential return, a loose-knit network of public interest groups and lawmakers is quietly devising plans to try to foil any efforts to expand presidential power, which could include pressuring the military to cater to his political needs.[/b]

Those taking part in the effort told NBC News they are studying Trump’s past actions and 2024 policy positions so that they will be ready if he wins in November. That involves preparing to take legal action and send letters to Trump appointees spelling out consequences they’d face if they undermine constitutional norms.

“We’re already starting to put together a team to think through the most damaging types of things that he [Trump] might do so that we’re ready to bring lawsuits if we have to,” said Mary McCord, executive director of the Institution for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law.

Part of the aim is to identify like-minded organizations and create a coalition to challenge Trump from day one, those taking part in the discussions said. Some participants are combing through policy papers being crafted for a future conservative administration. They’re also watching the interviews that Trump allies are giving to the press for clues to how a Trump sequel would look.

Other participants include Democracy Forward, an organization that took the Trump administration to court more than 100 times during his administration, and Protect Democracy, an anti-authoritarian group.

“We are preparing for litigation and preparing to use every tool in the toolbox that our democracy provides to provide the American people an ability to fight back,” said Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward. “We believe this is an existential moment for American democracy and it’s incumbent on everybody to do their part.”

America’s commander-in-chief has vast powers at his disposal — some well-known, others not so much. Some lawmakers and pro-democracy advocates worry there may be nothing stopping a president from mobilizing the military to intervene in elections, police American streets or quash domestic protests.

Wary of Trump’s staying power — he is running about even with President Joe Biden in the polls — Democratic lawmakers already known to be adversarial to Trump are working on a parallel track.

Among the least-understood tools available to a president is the Insurrection Act. Vaguely worded, it gives a president considerable discretion in deciding what constitutes an uprising and when it is OK to deploy active-duty military in response, experts say.

Some lawmakers on Capitol Hill worry that Trump might invoke the act to involve the armed forces in the face of domestic protests or if the midterm elections don’t go his way.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., is crafting a bill that would clarify the act and give Congress and the courts some say in its use. Its chances of passage are slim given that Republicans control the House and are largely loyal to Trump.

“There are an array of horrors that could result from Donald Trump’s unrestricted use of the Insurrection Act,” Blumenthal said in an interview. “A malignantly motivated president could use it in a vast variety of dictatorial ways unless at some point the military itself resisted what they deemed to be an unlawful order. But that places a very heavy burden on the military.”

Trump’s vow to seek “retribution” on behalf of those he says have been “wronged” and “betrayed” has sparked fears that he would use presidential powers more broadly as a cudgel against political foes. Compounding the anxiety, he remarked at a Fox News town hall last month that he would be a “dictator” — though only on his first day in office for the purposes of closing the border and drilling for oil. He later posted on his social media site that he had made that remark “in a joking manner.” More recently, Trump told a Fox News town hall in Iowa that “I’m not going to have time for retribution.”

Detractors aren’t buying it.

“He’s a clear and present danger to our democracy,” said William Cohen, a former Republican senator from Maine and defense secretary in the Clinton administration who is not involved in the loose-knit network. “His support is solid. And I don’t think people understand what living in a dictatorship would mean.”

Sent a list of questions about the fears recounted in this article, Trump’s campaign did not respond.

[b]‘The same lessons Lincoln learned’[/b]

Trump’s legal troubles offer new insights into his vision of a presidency that has shed restraints. Not even bribery or murder could land a president in jail so long as Congress didn’t first impeach and convict him, under a legal theory his lawyers advanced in a federal appeals court hearing Tuesday.

Trump is facing charges for attempting to overturn the 2020 election results. In his defense, his legal team contends that in trying to reverse Biden’s victory, Trump fell within the “outer perimeter” of his official duties and is thus shielded from prosecution.

Where does such reasoning lead? In the hearing, which Trump attended, one judge sketched ominous scenarios about what a president might do under that notion of broad presidential immunity.

Judge Florence Pan asked one of Trump’s lawyers whether a president could, for example, sell military secrets or order the elite SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival with impunity under the legal argument.

“He would have to be impeached and convicted first,” replied Trump’s lawyer, Dean John Sauer.

In an interview, Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said of Trump: “He’s going to be one creative motherf----- when it comes to trying to figure out how to abuse it [power]. Whatever your guess is, open up your imagination a little more.”

In the last term, Trump’s generals and civilian advisers proved to be a restraining influence: They’d tell him when he had a bad idea. And for a while, Trump seemed to take seriously the advice coming from aides with a military pedigree. “My generals,” he called them. Relations soured as time passed. One by one, most quit or were fired. A new team may not be so quick to cross him.

“The same lesson Lincoln learned in his first two or three years are the lessons that President Trump learned: Just because a guy has a title and uniform doesn’t mean anything,” Steve Bannon, a Trump ally and former senior White House official, said in an interview.

Soon after the 2020 election, as Trump was refusing to concede defeat, he upended the Pentagon leadership, firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper even though at that point he was a lame duck with just over two months left in the term.

The upheaval was jarring, recalled Mark Milley, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in an interview with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

In its final written report, the committee wrote that “some at the [Defense] Department had genuine concerns, counseling caution, that President Trump might give an illegal order to use the military in support of his efforts to overturn the election.”

[b]‘A new sheriff in town’[/b]

Plenty of rank-and-file members of the armed forces appear sympathetic to Trump’s cause. George Washington University’s program on extremism found that more than 150 of the nearly 1,200 people who were charged with crimes for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol came from a military background.

“The military is hundreds of thousands of people strong, and ultimately Trump will find people to follow his legal orders no matter what,” said a former senior official who served in the Trump administration, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk freely.

“The Insurrection Act is a legal order, and if he orders it there will be military officers, especially younger men and women, who will follow that legal order,” the former official added.

In policy videos posted to his website, Trump said he would provide “record funding for our military.” He faulted Biden for enacting “woke policies” that are hampering military recruitment and said he would flush out what he called “Marxism,” “communism” and “fascists.”

Trump’s allies say there is little doubt that he would make the military a particular focus.

“The Pentagon is going to be a super high priority, and they have to understand there will be a new sheriff in town,” Bannon said. “You’re going to see a massive housecleaning at the Pentagon. President Trump wants to put in a philosophy of how to win wars.”

[b]‘Like any good dictator’[/b]

As president, Trump was both fascinated by the military’s capabilities and frustrated by advisers who tried to dissuade him from carrying out plans they deemed ill-advised. Esper wrote in his memoir, “A Sacred Oath,” that in an Oval Office meeting, Trump inquired about having U.S. soldiers shoot domestic protesters in the legs. Esper wrote that his reaction to Trump’s suggestion was one of “utter disgust.”

A couple of times in 2020, Esper wrote, Trump broached the idea of firing missiles into Mexico to destroy illegal drug labs. Esper told Trump that would be an act of war; Trump replied that the U.S. would deny involvement, Esper wrote.

“My sense was that Trump always came to the Defense Department to solve his toughest problems, such as building a wall on the border, handling protesters in America’s streets, and dealing with Covid,” Esper said in an interview. “He kept coming back to DOD because it is seen as an institution that gets things done. But in some situations, this can end up politicizing DOD if the military is asked to do things it shouldn’t be doing.”

Lawmakers like Blumenthal are taking steps akin to placing sandbags around a building before a hurricane hits. They’ve made it tougher for a president to pull out of the NATO military alliance, for example. Unhappy that many NATO countries weren’t ponying up enough for defense, Trump had considered dropping out of the post-World War II alliance, his former national security adviser John Bolton wrote in his book, “The Room Where It Happened.”[/QUOTE][b]Article continues:[/b]

[URL=https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-military-fears-rcna129159]https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/202...ars-rcna129159[/URL]

Wow, that almost sounds like an insurrection.

no no no, they are"fortifying"their position, just like they did this last election.

These fuking ph@ggots deserve every bit of hell Trump would unleash on them...



.....inb4 nothing happens

I never thought I'd see the day that mainstream media is spreading blatant lies and panic that make Alex Jones seem grounded and chill. But here we are.

Accelerate.

"Trump might abuse his power of the military when he gets elected, therefore we're justified in abusing our power of the military to prevent it"

classic liberal logic

IF Trump is reelected, and IF he tries to use the military in a tyrannical manner, good luck stopping him with lawsuits.
Yuuge IFs there.

Remember when you all thought he was going to do that the 1st time?

What if they pass some law to take away some presidential powers and then Biden gets re-elected? or the next president after Trump is a Dem and gets fukked too when they needed those powers?

Me all? Nope.
I remember when morons thought Dubya, and Obama was going to do it, though.
Were you one of those?

In order to save the country from Trump, we must become Trump!

From the article:

Breaking News: braindead OP completely misinterprets article contents.

They're calling her the 'deep state' on twitter. She seems to have her hand in everything that opposes Trump. Conservative Treehouse thinks she is the J6 committee staff that Fani Willis has coordinated with. Not sure how true that is, but interesting if so.

I didn't misinterpret anything. You are a low IQ dickblower.

You completely misinterpreted it you moron. There's nothing there about staging a coup. Dabb already called you out on it. You and your butt buddy Alf have to be two of the dumbest people on here.

I didn't misinterpret anything. Keep gobbling cocks, you filthy fаggot.

This dude talks about sucking dicks on a frequent basis, almost pathologically, but he TOTALLY isn't in the closet. Just lol.

^^This is how I know you didn't read the article, you cock gobbling fаggot. If Democrats mobilize their goon squad to riot and burn down cities like they did in 2020, they are already working to usurp his power to properly deploy the National Guard, if he is elected. Why is this so difficult for you to understand?

If he starts using the military to attack political opponents, I might see if they'll let me back in.

This, and don't forget the fact that we also have to nullify the will of the people in order to preserve democracy.

I don't think you understand what a coup is.

**and also prevent him from usingexistingpresidential powers.
The military undermining the constitution and no longer obeying chain of command would certainly be a coup. The president would no longer have control of his own military.

Are you not alarmed at all by what these "lawmakers" are saying? jesus fkn christ lol

My god...

Lol ok, explain it to us then fruit. Dis gone be gud.