Aformer Army officer said Tuesday that, had Donald Trump successfully overturned the 2020 election, ensuing protests likely would have led to tragic consequences.
Kevin Carroll during an appearance on CNN’s “The Source with Kaitlan Collins” cited charging documents in the Jan. 6 election conspiracy case in which Trump officials casually discuss the use of force against protesters that would have been legal under the Insurrection Act.
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“John Eastman, who is the academic mind behind this idea to have Vice President Pence negate the votes, and the Assistant Attorney General Jeff Clark, who President Trump put in as acting Attorney General, knew that riots would result if Vice President Pence did what they suggested, and they anticipated that the Insurrection Act would be invoked by the President and that violence would result if basically federal armed forces or federalized National Guardsmen would have to put down protests in American cities with force,” Carroll said.
Collins replied that, “It basically sounds like you’re worried that the outcome could have been a lot worse than it even was in that period.”
“The outcome would have been terrible however the matter was resolved,” Carroll said.
“Senior military officials would have been put in position of having to decide do we disobey a facially lawful order from the president of the United States because the Insurrection Act does give the president quite a bit of latitude to use force to keep the federal law in operation out in the states, or would they for bad purpose, to try to keep someone in the White House who had lost the election, use force on American citizens.”
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Carroll said “it’s inevitable in this day and age when there’s a really large protest there’s going to be some vandals, there’s going to be some looters, there’s going to be some arsonists. So, it’s certain that there would have been a confrontation between young American troops who probably wouldn’t have had much training in civil unrest, and American citizens, and tragedy would have resulted in a way that would have changed our country. Again, either through the military disobeying a presidential order, or through shedding innocent blood.”
Carroll added that, should Trump be convicted in the Jan. 6 election conspiracy case, the potential for violence should be considered at sentencing.
“It’s a fraud and a conspiracy case and part of the conspiracy here was to misuse the United States military against American citizens to try to keep someone in office who had lost the election, and when the government takes its position on sentencing, and when the judge – if there’s conviction – decides what the sentence should be.
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I think they have to look at the fact that if this plan had gone forward, you would have had terrible harm to the United States military as an institution, to our republic as a democracy in which the military is supposed to be and has been subservient to civilian control, and to the young servicemembers and the protesters would have tragically been at the sharp end of this,” Carroll said.
