Pro-Trump attorney Lin Wood and the recently pardoned former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn have called for President Donald Trump to declare martial law and have the military oversee a “national re-vote.”
Sidney Powell, Flynn lawyer and until recently a lawyer for the Trump campaign, amplified calls for Trump to suspend the Electoral College vote and set up a military tribunal to investigate voter fraud.
Wood and Flynn tweeted out a press release from the Ohio-based “We The People Convention” headed by a Tea Party leader.
The press release cites President Abraham Lincoln’s actions during the Civil War and asserts that deploying martial law is the only way to avoid a “shooting civil war.”
“When the legislators, courts and/or Congress fail to do their duty under the 12th Amendment, you must be ready Mr. President to immediately declare a limited form of Martial Law, and temporarily suspend the Constitution and civilian control of these federal elections, for the sole purpose of having the military oversee a national re-vote,” the statement reads.
It baselessly cites “OVERWHELMING” evidence of voter fraud, and calls on Trump to “silence the destructive media’s one-sided propaganda.”
Flynn, who has dabbled in QAnon-adjacent conspiracy theorizing before, tagged some Trump acolytes and Fox’s Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo in his retweet. “Freedom never kneels except for God,” he wrote.
Wood tagged Trump, urging him to declare martial law to combat “Communist China’s” “nefarious efforts to take away our freedom.”
“Our country is headed to civil war,” he added. “A war created by 3rd party bad actors for their benefit – not for We The People.”
Ohio Attorney General and Republican David Yost condemned the press release.
“This ad, though protected by the First Amendment, is utterly irresponsible, ahistorical and without precedent or legal rationale,” he tweeted.
Powell, booted from Trump’s campaign team for somehow being a little too extreme, took a similar but different tack, in addition to retweeting Flynn.
She retweeted a call for Trump to declare the Insurrection Act, a law that allows the President to deploy federal troops in extraordinary circumstances.
She had also retweeted a letter asking Trump to, along with declaring the Act, use military tribunals to investigate voter fraud and suspend the Electoral College certification vote, the January Georgia runoffs and President-Elect Joe Biden’s inauguration. That post no longer shows up on her feed, but was captured in screenshots.
Trump himself has not seemed to pick up on these particular conspiracy theories yet, though all of these tin-hatted types tend to be alarmingly close to the President’s ear. Per his Twitter feed, Trump has been preoccupied with declaring a bombshell report on a DOJ investigation into a suspected bribe-for-pardon scheme to be fake news, amplifying his lawyers’ flimsy attempts to overturn the election and boosting specious accusations of voter fraud.
