Political and legal experts spoke out Saturday after it was reported that Donald Trump’s transition team is compiling a list of senior current and former U.S. military officials to see if they could be court-martialed.
NBC News dropped the exclusive report over the weekend, saying the Trump team is “considering creating a commission to investigate the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan.”
The news gave one former GOP insider some “literal goosebumps.”
Online, some also lashed out at the news.
Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance, for instance, noted that it was Trump himself who “signed the timeline agreement for Afghanistan withdrawal.”
“Now Trump’s transition team, if reporting is correct, is talking about prosecuting officers for following lawful orders. Hard to see that surviving a military Rule 32 hearing (sort of like a criminal grand jury) which makes this sound like an autocrat’s move–try and strike terror into the hearts of public servants so they will be obedient,” Vance wrote. “A horrible abuse of military justice & unlawful effort to impose command influence.”
Anti-Trump conservative Tom Nichols also chimed in, saying, “Trump’s people might be floating this court-martial thing to distract everyone from his Cabinet picks. Maybe.”
“But even as a head-fake, it’s a direct attack on the norms of American civil-military relations and a reminder that Trump wants loyalty to him, not the Constitution,” he wrote on Saturday.
Retired soldier Robert Clark wrote, “Not a single US active or retired military General or Flag Officer will be convicted at court martial over the Afghan NEO / withdrawal or for anything else they did in following legal & lawful orders.”
“It will blow up in Trump’s face,” he added.
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