Michael Flynn Shares Message Encouraging Donald Trump To Declare Martial Law So He Can Hold New Election
Michael Flynn shared a message on Twitter that called on President Donald Trump to invoke limited martial law, suspending the U.S. Constitution in order to hold a new election that could be overseen by the military.
The former national security adviser, who received a wide-ranging pardon from Trump after having been convicted of lying to the FBI and other federal charges, took to Twitter to share a press release from We the People Convention, a group echoing the president’s unfounded claims of voting fraud. The release corresponded with a full-page ad in the Washington Times and demanded that Trump “invoke limited martial law” in order to allow the U.S. military to oversee a new federal election if courts and Congress “do not follow the Constitution.”
The release called for a series of new measures on what would be another nationwide vote.
“Federal candidates only. Paper ballots. No computers. Hand-counted with both parties watching every vote. Only registered voters. Photo ID to prove residence. Conducted safely with everyone wearing masks and six feet apart, just like we did in Ohio.”
Flynn’s retweet of the statement attracted some controversy, with many attacking the idea. As some noted, other top Republican figures pushing Trump’s election challenge have floated somewhat similar ideas. Lin Wood, a Georgia lawyer pushing many of the legal challenges, also joined in sharing the call for martial law and new voting.
Flynn has shared other controversial messages as well. As The Daily Beast reported, he also passed along an unfounded claim that China had manipulated voting tabulation in order to stop Trump from being re-elected. In an interview, Flynn said that China was “not going to allow 2020 to happen, and so now what we have is theft with mail-in ballots, theft with this, uh, this software, smartmatic software and Dominion systems.”
Trump and allies have failed in a number of legal challenges attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 race, including a suit in Pennsylvania that sought to stop the certification of results showing Biden as the winner there. The president has repeatedly claimed that there were millions of “illegal” votes cast, but his legal representation has been unable to back the claims with evidence. Some of the court filings have earned mockery online, including one filed last week citing a witness who claimed to have evidence of illegal votes in Edison County, Michigan — a place that does not exist.
