Trump’s Former Defense Secretary Explains How Ex-President Could Use Insurrection Act to Crush Protests and It Would Be ‘Completely Legal’

Former United States Secretary of Defense Mark Esper explained on CNN, Friday how former President Donald Trump could use the Insurrection Act to stop protests against him if he were re-elected president in 2024.

During an interview with Esper on CNN’s NewsNight, host Abby Phillip said, “There is this reporting that Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to basically put military troops in American cities to deal with protests, protests that might arise if he were re-elected.”

After Phillip asked Esper whether the military could “push back on an order like that,” he replied:

I think if something like that were to happen right after an inauguration in January 2025, I guess, look, there would not be a civilian chain of command in place at that point in time, first of all, to push back. So there would probably be an acting secretary, he or she would then have to decide whether or not to implement that order. Otherwise, the military chain of command would be intact. Now look, there’s another option too. Most often, people go to the active duty, but there’s nothing that prevents the president from asking a governor, a friendly governor, to mobilize his national guard to assist as well.

Pressed on whether such an order would be legal, Esper explained:

Once the president is signed into office, it is completely legal for him to invoke the Insurrection Act. Now, there are a few steps that have to happen. My recollection is that the process actually begins with the attorney general, and I assume that early in the term, there would not be an attorney general in place. Again, there would be an acting attorney general, but my understanding, my recollection is the process actually begins with the attorney general making a recommendation to implement the Insurrection Act.

Esper — who served as Secretary of Defense in the Trump administration between 2019 and 2020 — also told Phillip that the “first year of a second Trump presidency would look like the last year of the first Trump presidency.”

He claimed, “In other words, you’d see him surrounded by a lot of loyalists, people who are willing to do his bidding, whatever he wants, and that would be his metric, his litmus test for anybody he brings in to his presidency the second term.”

In September, Esper told CNN it was “a legitimate fear” that Trump could throw his enemies, including former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, into prison during a second term in the White House.

Watch above via CNN.