Rumors President Donald Trump plans to remain in power by declaring martial law were confirmed Saturday with multiple media news stories reporting a shouting match at the White House regarding this option.
Trump convened a meeting in the Oval Office Friday seeking more ways to overturn the election won by Joe Biden. The discussions turned to a stunning comment by former national security adviser Michael Flynn on December 3 urging Trump to suspend the U.S. Constitution and declare martial law so the U.S. military could run a new election that would see Trump win.
Flynn tweeted a full-page ad in a right-wing newspaper, The Washington Times, claiming this executive action is necessary to avoid the alternative of an imminent "shooting civil war."
On Friday, Flynn again repeated his call for martial law and the U.S. military to run a new election. In again urging Trump to move in this direction, Flynn cited Trump's discredited voter fraud claims thrown out by federal and local courts over the past month.
Flynn said Trump "could immediately, on his order, seize every single one of these voting machines. He could order the, 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."
Flynn is said to have repeated his case at the White House meeting to a group that included lawyer Sidney Powell, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and counsel Pat Cipollone.
The discussions about martial law and about Trump's suggestion to appoint Powell as a special counsel to investigate voter fraud allegations degenerated into screaming matches, with some of Trump's aides blasting Powell and Flynn for their more outrageous suggestions about overturning the election.
One person described the meeting as "ugly" as Powell and Flynn accused their foes of abandoning Trump as he works to overturn the results of the election.
Trump is still said to be considering options -- such as declaring martial law -- in his desperate bid to cling to the presidency, which was formally bestowed on Joe Biden by the Electoral College on December 14.
Even the Electoral College officially affirming Biden as the 46th president of the United States "did not appear enough to shake Trump from his delusions of victory," according to White House insiders talking to CNN.
Trump's ideas he still has paths to remaining in power are being fed by his remaining advisers such as lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, and Flynn, whom Trump pardoned on November 26.
In 2017, Flynn admitted to lying to the FBI about contacts with Sergey Kislyak, Russia's ambassador to the U.S., but tried to withdraw his plea.
Both Giuliani and Ellis are misleading Trump about the extent of voting irregularities in swing states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan Trump lost, and keep telling there is still a chance to reverse Biden's win.
"He's been fed so much misinformation (by Giuliani and Ellis) that I think he actually thinks this thing was stolen from him," said one Trump adviser.
Trump might even try to refuse to leave the White House on Inauguration Day on January 20. Still, the very fact Trump thinks this is a viable option suggests he's "engaged in more than a scheme to grift his supporters," said Jonathan Chait, a political pundit writing for New York magazine.
Trump's "drinking his own poisoned Kool-Aid," Chait surmises.
"Even the scholars who expressed the deepest fears of Trump's intentions to undermine the system did not put credence in the possibility he could defy the outcome by simply refusing to leave," wrote Chait.
"Squatting is not one of the tools in his authoritarian tool kit."
However, Chait believes "Trump 100 percent will leave the White House on Inauguration Day, if not well before."
But, the most dangerous delusion being fed Trump comes from Flynn, who keeps egging Trump to declare martial law to stay in power.
Texas law professor Steve Vladek said Supreme Court precedents and several laws, notably the Posse Comitatus Act, have severely constrained the president's ability to declare martial law.
He said "Flynn's insane rant" appears to rely on "the numerous invocations of martial law" before and during the Civil War.
