Trump Invokes the Far More Powerful Stafford Act

Federal SWAT Teams Deployed Against Rioters at the White House

Friend of TVO Ian, as well as other readers, have asked why President Trump doesn’t just invoke the Insurrection Act to use troops to put down the Democrats’ Antifa-BLM shock troops, who are a key element of a fully-planned out Democrat insurrection attempt.  This post will answer that question.

First, before invoking the Insurrection Act, 10 USC § 254 requires the President to publish a proclamation ordering the insurgents to disperse.  This advance notice gives Antifa-BLM a chance to shut down and go into hiding.  It’s not widely known, but Trump has so far opted out of invoking the Insurrection Act in favor of something much more effective.

Back in March, Trump invoked a national state of emergency (ostensibly due to Bat Plague) and the Stafford Act.  This step has already been challenged by the Democrats and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.  (For example, SCOTUS upheld Trump’s right to redirect federal funds to complete the border wall as part of the national emergency.)

And it’s not just the border wall for which Trump has redirected money.  Trump has redirected $1 trillion into infrastructure to provide jobs during the national emergency, even in Democrat-run locked down states.  He has redirected other funds into vaccine development, ventilator manufacturing, and into buying the food farmers were dumping when the lockdowns started, supporting the farmers and getting massive amounts of food into food banks to see people through the lockdowns.  And Trump just redirected other funds into extending federal unemployment benefits and paying for his payroll tax cut via Executive Order.

The Stafford Act gives Trump immense national emergency powers.  These include not only the power to redirect government funds, but the power to use our armed forces and/or federal SWAT teams to supplement state and local law enforcement, and the power to seize the media and social media to maintain communications with the public.

Trump did not just seize these powers out of thin air.  Congress wrote the laws that specifically give Trump these powers and, again, the Supreme Court has upheld them.

So while Trump has let it slide when Twitter censored a handful of his tweets, if Twitter tries to suspend his account during this national emergency, I guarantee the federal government will seize control of Twitter.  Trump can also take down the entire internet and stop all cell phone communications if needed to stop Democrats’ insurrection forces from communicating with each other.  Trump has unbelievable power at the moment.

How Trump Uses Forgotten Laws and Poker Moves to Defeat Enemies

Trump Paraded the White House Snipers Through the DC Riot Crowd

One of the keys to Trump’s success in keeping his campaign promises despite overwhelming Democrat and Deep State resistance is that he has systematically deployed his aides to actually read our laws.  What he has done over and over is use forgotten existing laws to overcome Democrats’ attempts to block his agenda.

For example, the Real ID Act of 2005 specifically provides that the Department of Homeland Security Secretary may, at his sole discretion, waive all federal and state laws that would be an impediment to building a border wall.  Again, Congress wrote and passed that law, not Trump.

But Democrats appear to have completely forgotten they passed the Real ID Act.  So while Democrats have used lawfare to hurl environmental lawsuits, tribal lawsuits, immigration lawsuits, property-rights lawsuits and a dozen other kinds of lawsuits at Trump to try to stop the border wall, the courts have consistently upheld his right to continue building the wall.

Similarly, Democrats have hurled lawsuit after lawsuit at Trump for his use of his national emergency and Stafford Act powers, only to meet defeat in the courts.

While Nancy Pelosi passes laws to find out what’s in them, Trump reads laws to use them to achieve his agenda.

Trump also delights in poker moves to defeat the enemy.  For example, at the very moment in May that he had Democrats spouting off about the Insurrection Act and the use of troops against the American public, he was moving in SWAT teams under his powers from the Stafford Act.

At one point, during the Antifa-BLM-People’s Liberation Army-Mexican drug cartel siege on the White House at the end of May, Trump made a big point of talking loudly about using troops to put down the rioting in DC.  Then he made a big show of transporting National Guard troops around the country.  Every time I looked, there were National Guard units flying from one place to another, or shifting from one hotel to another in DC.   Everywhere in the media there were photos of National Guard units being shipped around.

But the National Guard was used mainly as a distraction.  The people who actually put down the siege on the White House were the White House snipers who are there everyday and the same SWAT teams Trump has since been using in Portland and Kenosha and elsewhere.  Trump staged a parade of the White House snipers, with the biggest guns I’ve ever seen, right through the Antifa-BLM crowd in the afternoon.  Then a collection of fully-armed and intimidating SWAT team members took the stage in front of the White House for all to see.

Antifa-BLM rely on useful idiots for cover and the useful idiots just melted away.  The Siege on the White House had to be postponed.  Democrats are trying to start it up again September 17th.

The Threat of Mutiny

The second reason Trump doesn’t invoke the Insurrection Act is that he can’t trust the military.

The U.S. military leadership is as deeply infiltrated by the insurrection forces as the rest of the federal government.  By that I mean it’s filled with Obama-appointed traitors. There are open Communist Party members teaching at West Point.

And remember, there’s a Department of Defense audit going on that is finding trillions of dollars were stolen from the military, with the knowledge and support of military leaders, during the Obama administration.

Three former generals became big loudmouths against invoking the Insurrection Act in late May, during the siege of the White House.  This behavior was so egregious that Trump could literally force them to return to active duty and court martial them for it.

Stanley McChrystal is deploying DoD AI propaganda bots on social media against the Trump campaign.  Stop and understand this.  A former general is using a Department of Defense weapon to intervene in our election.  These generals and more are, sadly, in on the Democrats’ insurrection, along with officers at every level below them.

In other words, Trump literally has to worry about mutiny if he calls out the troops.  A good friend I talked to cannot get this through his head, so let me quote Michael Anton, who puts what’s happening particularly well.  Here’s an excerpt from his piece “The Coming Coup?”

It started with the military brass quietly indicating that the troops should not follow a presidential order. They were bolstered by many former generals—including President Trump’s own first Secretary of Defense—who stated openly what the brass would only hint at. Then, as nationwide riots really got rolling in early June, the sitting Secretary of Defense himself all but publicly told the president not to invoke the Insurrection Act. His implicit message was: “Mr. President, don’t tell us to do that, because we won’t, and you know what happens after that.”

The Democrats’ own election plan document explicitly counts on the military to remove Trump from the White House if he WINS.  Again, please stop and take this in.  Not if he loses.  If he WINS.

Soon after this post was published, a commenter praised it but said even a bad president like Biden couldn’t destroy America because of the brilliant system set up by our founding fathers.

When you have an enemy of America so deeply entrenched that you can’t even count on the military to defend the Constitution, you don’t have a Constitution anymore.

Democrats Want a Kent State Massacre

The third reason Trump is relying on small expert SWAT teams rather than our troops is that Democrats want an overreaction from Trump. They want a Kent State, or better, a Maidan Massacre, that the DNC-controlled media can use for propaganda.  They want to blast photos of innocent killed civilians everywhere, with their graduation photos, their Little League trophies, their grieving loved ones weeping for the cameras.  If you remember, it was young, inexperienced National Guard troops who killed four students and injured nine others by gunfire at Kent State in 1970.

Just look at the treatment the Democrats and media gave Jacob Blake, a rapist who’d fought with cops and pulled a knife on them before attempting to flee.  Or the treatment given to George Floyd, who died of a fentanyl overdose while being held with a legal restraint method after passing a counterfeit bill.

Trump has refused to give Democrats the overreactions and mass deaths they’ve wanted. Instead, as I’ve said, he has used federal SWAT teams from Border Patrol, Immigration, the Bureau of Prisons, the Coast Guard, the U.S. Marshals, and other federal agencies to quietly investigate and arrest Antifa-BLM terrorists and re-arrest all the violent criminals Democrats let out of prison for their riots.

For example, it’s been the U.S. Marshals working with the deputized Oregon State Police and deputized sheriffs and local cops that shot murderer Michael Reinoehl and arrested dozens of other violent Portland Antifa this past week. The U.S. Marshals had been undercover with Antifa collecting evidence for the arrests all summer. You need evidence to arrest, charge and hold these people.

In Washington State yesterday, dozens of Antifa drove their cars onto Interstate 5 and parked them, blocking the highway. Deputized Washington State Police, with an ICE SWAT team, got them all arrested within minutes and had their cars impounded.

In Kenosha, another federal SWAT team was ready and waiting for the Portland Antifa terrorist group Riot Kitchen to pull into town with a bus full of Molotov cocktails and commercial-grade fireworks.  Riot Kitchen never even got a chance to riot in Kenosha.  They were all arrested and charged for crimes they’d committed over the summer in Portland.

So now, instead of getting released to return to rioting by Soros-funded Democrat city DAs, Antifa-BLM are getting federal charges, federal bail, and federal prison time. The Soros-funded DAs can’t do anything to stop it.

Using Federal Troops in Uncooperative States or Cities is a Nightmare

Trump’s SWAT teams can move quickly and lightly, before Antifa even knows they’re on the scene. They have advanced equipment and special training.  Trump doesn’t have to get Democrat governors to cooperate with him to use them.

Using federal troops where state and local governments aren’t cooperating is a nightmare. For example, in DC we saw the mayor refuse to pay the hotel bills of National Guard called out to protect the White House. She kept them shuffling from hotel to hotel. She delayed food reaching them.

Kurt Schlichter, who ran Army National Guard civilian support operations for 23 years, says using the National Guard in an uncooperative city is exactly like deploying them in a hostile foreign country.  You have to ship in shelter, food, water, fuel, power, arms, medical units, transport, even lawyers.  It can take weeks just to get set up.

What if Trump wants to send the 82nd Airborne into Portland?  You’d have to fly them in to get them there quickly and the Portland airport might refuse them permission to land.  Now you have to get permission to land in another airport (Boise might help) and make arrangements to transport troops from there.  And where do you set up?  What if the mayor won’t allow the troops to set up in the local stadium or park?  Now you have to go to court to get a court order.  And if you get an Obama judge, you have to appeal.

By the time Trump could get 5,000 troops set up in Portland, Antifa will have moved to Cincinnati and Dubuque.  While Trump’s SWAT teams and deputized state and local law enforcement were rolling up Antifa in Portland last week, the remaining Antifa from NYC, Chicago, and Seattle flew to Rochester to riot in restaurants there, flipping over the food-laden tables of the terrified customers and chasing them into the streets.

So Trump will be deploying his fast and lightweight SWAT teams a lot more widely in blue states.  Essentially the SWAT teams will have to deputize sheriff’s offices, correction officers, and friendly local cops in small cities and towns throughout the blue states where Democrat governors and mayors are deploying Antifa-BLM for the Democrat insurrection.  You have to fight a guerilla war with guerilla war tactics.

Trump can still invoke the Insurrection Act if he ever needs to. He might have to arrest a bunch of mutinous officers, but he still has the threat of yet more force to intimidate the Democrats and their shock troops.  Fortunately, he hasn’t needed to yet. Most of the summer was spent gathering evidence to get federal convictions not only of the Democrats’ terrorists but of the elite Democrats funding them. While that evidence was being collected, voters got to see what Democrats are really about.

And don’t give me any nonsense about how Democrats aren’t responsible for Antifa-BLM.  Democrats recruited them, fund them, Democrats sent them to ISIS for training, Democrats defend them in the media daily, and Democrats deploy them.  Kamala Harris and other Democrats raised millions in bail money for them.  Biden staffers donated to their bail.

Democrat Party officials refuse to charge and prosecute them even for the most violent offenses.  For example, Antifa murderer Michael Reinoehl was caught and released on violent rioting and gun charges in June and July, caught and released again in July after a violent melee in Portland involving a gun, and was in the crowd of Antifa that assaulted Adam Haner and kicked him in the head on August 17, for which he was caught and released without charges.

And here are Democrat officials in Portland trying to get Reinoehl off on the murder of Jay Danielson. Reinoehl confessed to the murder on vice.com and engaged in a firefight with officers who came to arrest him.  Federal undercover officers said, and multiple videos showed, that an Antifa group had organized and planned the murder with Reinoehl, ambushed Danielson, and shot him execution style.  Yet Democrats tried to protect him.