Impossível?
Mas será o General Flynn tão inconsciente para desafiar Trump a declarar a lei marcial nos estados decisivos, onde Biden venceu as eleições, sem estar respaldado por um sentimento conspirativo suficientemente forte e alargado nas forças militares norte-americanas? O que acontecerá se Trump corresponder ao desafio de Flynn, e ele, pelo comportamento que tem demonstrado, sobretudo desde que perdeu as eleições, é muito capaz de o fazer?
Seria uma tragédia para os EUA, para a democracia, para o mundo, se acontecesse;
Se não, um bom argumento para Philip Roth ficcionar, se ainda fosse vivo e Flynn passará à história como um frustrado aspirante a traidor da democracia e, por essa traição, dever ser julgado.
"General Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser
to Donald Trump, has hinted the United States President could use the
military to force an election "rerun" - saying "it's not unprecedented". Speaking
on the conservative Newsmax TV network, Flynn outlined the next steps
available to Trump now that the Electoral College has officially
confirmed President-elect Joe Biden the winner of the US election. "There
is no way in the world we are going to be able to move forward as a
nation. [Trump] could immediately, on his order, seize every single one
of these [voting] machines," Flynn said in apparent reference to the
conspiracy theory that voting software flipped Trump votes for Biden. "Within the swing states, if he wanted to, he could take
military capabilities, and he could place those in states and basically
rerun an election in each of those states. "I
mean, it's not unprecedented. These people are out there talking about
martial law like it's something that we've never done. Martial law has
been instituted 64 times. Flynn quickly added: "We have a constitutional process. We clearly have a constitutional process. That has to be followed." - c/p CNN
"Martial law in the United States refers to times in United States history in which in a region, state, city, or the whole United States was placed under the control of a military body. On a national level, both the US President and the US Congress have the power to impose martial law since both can be in charge of the militia.[1] In each state, the governor has the right to impose martial law within the borders of the state.[2] In the United States, martial law has been used in a limited number of circumstances, such as New Orleans during the Battle of New Orleans; after major disasters, such as the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, or during riots, such as the Omaha race riot of 1919 or the 1920 Lexington riots; local leaders declared martial law to protect themselves from mob violence, such as Nauvoo, Illinois, during the Illinois Mormon War, or Utah during the Utah War; or in response to chaos associated with protests and rioting, such as the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike, in Hawaii after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and during the Civil Rights Movement in response to the Cambridge riot of 1963." - c/p Wiki
Flynn served as a senior advisor to Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign. On January 22, 2017, Flynn was sworn in as the National Security Advisor.[12] On February 13, 2017, he resigned after information surfaced that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about the nature and content of his communications with Russian ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak.[13][14][15] Flynn's tenure as the National Security Advisor is the shortest in the history of the position.[16][17]
In December 2017, Flynn formalized a deal with Special Counsel Robert Mueller to plead guilty to a felony count of "willfully and knowingly" making false statements to the FBI, and agreed to cooperate with the Special Counsel's investigation.[18] In January 2020, Flynn moved to withdraw his guilty plea, claiming government vindictiveness and breach of the plea agreement.[19] The United States Department of Justice announced that it intended to drop all charges against Flynn on May 7, 2020.[20] Federal district judge Emmet G. Sullivan ruled the matter to be placed on hold.[21]
On November 25, 2020, Flynn was issued a presidential pardon by Donald Trump.[22] On December 8, 2020, Judge Sullivan dismissed the criminal case against Flynn.[23] Since being pardoned, Flynn has expressed his support for suspending the U.S. constitution, silencing the press and holding a new election under military authority. - c/p Wiki
--- 19/12
Tension rises between Pentagon and Biden transition team over meetings
Estará o Pentágono a querer ganhar tempo para Trump, na sua qualidade de, ainda, comandante supremo das forças armadas, dar ordens para lançar o Golpe Flynn?
--- 20/12
MARTIAL LAW ON THE OVAL OFFICE
Just when it seemed like the President couldn't sink any lower in his quest to subvert the November election results, his mere entertainment of invoking martial law to negate Biden's victory underscores how laser-focused he still is on his own interests at a time when the nation is mired in crisis.
The idea came up during
an extraordinary Oval Office meeting Friday between Trump, members of his team and two of his most discredited outside advisers -- lawyer
Sidney Powell, a fount of baseless voter fraud theories, and former national security adviser Michael Flynn, whom
Trump recently pardoned and who first floated the martial law idea earlier last week. The impromptu gathering devolved into a shouting match between his advisers -- some of whom were forcefully resisting Powell and Flynn's outrageous suggestions -- but it nevertheless showed how Trump continues to surround himself with sycophants, no matter how crazy their theories are as long as they will benefit him.
Though Trump is fighting hard to stay in the White House, he has shown little interest in doing the actual work required of the commander-in-chief. He has done nothing to try to curb the spread of Covid-19 -- tweeting Saturday that "we don't want to have lockdowns. The cure cannot be worse than the problem itself" -- and he has not interceded to try to force bickering members of Congress to strike a deal on an emergency stimulus package that would alleviate some of the nation's financial suffering as some
12 million Americans face the loss of their jobless benefits on December 26.
For the first time Saturday, Trump addressed the massive cyberattack on US government agencies,
contradicting his own Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said Friday that "we can now say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged in this activity."
Trump, who has inexplicably proven unwilling to call out Russia or President Vladimir Putin for nefarious acts over the past four years, confounded national security experts on Saturday by tweeting that "it may be China" that is responsible for the attacks.
"I have been fully briefed and everything is well under control," Trump wrote on Twitter.
Showing his lingering insecurity about the legitimacy of his 2016 victory, and his rejection of any suggestion that Russia tried to interfere in that contest against Hillary Clinton to help him win, Trump went on to say that "Russia, Russia, Russia is the priority chant when anything happens."
"Discussing the possibility that it may be China (it may!)," the President tweeted of the cyber hack that breached US government systems.
Some Republican senators gingerly tried to sidestep the President's latest theories Saturday. Sen. Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican who is acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said, "Everything I've seen is indicative of something that's pretty widespread and serious and I think indicates that it was the Russian intelligence service."
When asked about Trump's assertion about China being involved in the massive cyberhack, Sen. Jim Inhofe, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee and was briefed on the attack, replied, "All of I've heard is Russia."
The Oklahoma Republican also told CNN's Manu Raju that Trump made a bad decision by vowing to veto the annual defense authorization bill, which Trump has claimed is weak on China -- a view Inhofe disputes.
"I really believe he's not getting the right advice. I know people advising him -- they don't appreciate the fact that I say that," Inhofe said. "But I believe that."
Rep. Adam Smith, the Democratic chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, called Trump "an aspiring fascist" who admires Putin and wants the same kind of control that Putin exerts over his own country and its elections. Smith said the reports that Trump entertained Flynn's theories about invoking martial law were "unbelievably disturbing."
"He is talking about basically leading a coup against the United States government and destroying our Constitution," Smith told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on "The Situation Room" Saturday night. "There needs to be strong bipartisan pushback against this. It is an unbelievably dangerous thing for the President to be talking about."
A contentious Oval Office meeting
Trump continues to test the guardrails of democracy as he looks ahead to January 6 when a joint session of Congress meets to formally count the Electoral College results, which have now been certified by all 50 states. Biden overwhelmingly defeated Trump with
306 electoral votes to Trump's 232.
But that didn't stop Flynn from raising the martial law idea, although it's unclear whether Trump endorsed the idea when it came up in the White House meeting Friday, CNN reported. Other officials who attended the meeting, first reported by the
New York Times, rejected that idea along with the notion that Powell should be named as a special counsel who would investigate claims of voter fraud, which have been consistently debunked.
The meeting took an "ugly" turn when Powell and Flynn accused Trump officials of failing to back up the President in his efforts to overturn the results.
The pushback against Flynn and Powell's theories and suggestions does not appear to have tempered the President's interest in finding a way to block Biden from taking office as he tweeted baseless theories Saturday about compromised voting machines.
Trump's political operation has raised
more than $207 million since the election, which his campaign claimed would support his legal efforts. Though many of the solicitations asked supporters to give to support his court battles, much of the money was directed toward a new leadership PAC that Trump started shortly after the election.
Though his campaign legal team once distanced itself from Powell -- and
advised staffers Saturday to preserve all documents related to Dominion Voting Systems and the pro-Trump attorney in anticipation of litigation by the company against her -- Trump has been urging other people to fight like Powell has, multiple people familiar with his remarks told CNN's Kaitlan Collins.
Covid relief package moves closer
While the President dabbled in election conspiracy theories, Republican and Democratic leaders continued to
negotiate the emergency stimulus bill on Capitol Hill after passing a two-day stopgap measure that prevented the government from shutting down on Friday night but that expires Sunday night.
Leaders have said for days that they are close to a deal, and one of the major sticking points Saturday was a disagreement over the Federal Reserve's emergency lending authority -- a seemingly esoteric issue that would have seemed far removed from the lives of most struggling Americans if it had held up the deal.
Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey had argued that the emergency lending program, created under the CARES law passed in March, to boost the economy should be phased out because he believed it could become a slush fund for the incoming Biden administration. Democrats said that authority is needed to bolster the economy. Late Saturday night, Toomey agreed to drop his demands over the broad language in his proposal, a Democratic aide told CNN's Raju.
"We're getting close, very close," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters as he left the Capitol late Saturday night. "If things continue on this path and nothing gets in the way, we'll be able to vote tomorrow."
The slow pace of negotiations and the lack of transparency about the fine points of the deal have proved frustrating to some members. Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware told CNN's Suzanne Malveaux earlier Saturday that the timing of an agreement was still unclear.
"It's frustrating as all get out to me that we've been at the final point now for days," Coons said. "It's unclear to me exactly what the last final issues are that are holding us up this weekend. I expect a final vote in the Senate on Tuesday, but it's entirely possible we're up here until Christmas Eve given the history of this particular impasse."
CNN's Kevin Liptak and Pamela Brown contributed to this report.
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