Lawmakers ask top Pentagon officials to ensure military is not swept up in politics, election

Two Democratic lawmakers sent a letter this week to top Pentagon officials asking them to ensure that the military stays out of the 2024 election, domestic affairs and politics as former President Trump has campaigned on sending federal troops to the southern border and cities struggling with crime. 

“There is no greater responsibility than the oath of office we swear to the Constitution,” Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), a former Navy helicopter pilot, wrote in a statement. “Donald Trump betrayed that oath time and again, particularly on January 6 when he jeopardized the peaceful transfer of power. 

“As we prepare for another presidential election, we are calling on our military leaders to reject improper political influence and to take necessary steps to preserve the bedrock foundation of our democracy.”

Sherrill wrote the letter alongside Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), a former CIA officer, to call on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other senior military officials to serve as “guardrails against using the military in domestic affairs” and to “preserve the system that our Founding Fathers designed.” 

They specifically called on the Pentagon to reaffirm that federal law prohibits the direct participation of soldiers in domestic law enforcement; that the deployment of troops under the Insurrection Act, unless specific conditions are met, is illegal; and that troops cannot be deployed to respond to the exercise of free speech. 

In their joint statement, Slotkin and Sherrill point to statements by potential members of Trump’s Cabinet who “have called for the use of military force to participate actively in unconstitutional domestic activities such as law enforcement and immigration.” 

Trump said in an interview with Time in 2023 that he would be open to sending the military to the southern border to deal with illegal immigration. 

“I don’t think I’d have to do that. I think the National Guard would be able to do that. If they weren’t able to, then I’d use the military,” he said during that Time interview when asked if he would use the military to carry out his mass deportation plans.

When asked about the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the usage of federal troops as a police force in all but the most extreme circumstances, Trump insisted that undocumented immigrants were “not civilians.” 

“These are people that aren’t legally in our country. This is an invasion of our country,” he said. 

Slotkin and Sherrill also wrote about Project 2025, a 1000-page-long conservative blueprint for a second Trump administration largely written by Trump administration officials. 

The Trump campaign has worked to distance itself from Project 2025, which envisions a radically transformed federal government in which Trump would fire thousands of civil servants and replace them with political appointees. 

“The authors of Project 2025 — a ‘playbook’ for the start of a Trump presidency written by close Trump associates — have drawn up plans to invoke the Insurrection Act from the start of a second Trump presidency to deploy military personnel to fill domestic law enforcement roles across the country,” they wrote in their statement. 

During the 2020 presidential election, then-Chair of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley came under fire for walking with Trump while wearing combat fatigues into Lafayette Park after Trump ordered the National Guard to clear people protesting police brutality after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. 

Milley later apologized, saying he should not have been there, and drafted a resignation letter after the incident. He did not end up sending the letter to Trump. 

“It is my belief that you were doing great and irreparable harm to my country. I believe that you have made a concerted effort over time to politicize the United States military,” Milley wrote, according to The New Yorker. 

After Trump and other Republican officials peddled lies about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 insurrection on the Capitol, Milley and the other Joint Chiefs of Staff released an unprecedented statement recognizing President Biden as the president and reminding soldiers about their oath to the Constitution. 

“As service members, we must embody the values and ideals of the Nation. We support and defend the Constitution,” they wrote at the time. “On January 20, 2021, in accordance with the Constitution, confirmed by the states and the courts and certified by Congress, President-elect Biden will be inaugurated.” 

Slotkin said in her statement that “principled military leaders made it clear they would not help that effort and took an important stand for democracy,” and it is once again imperative “that senior military leaders be clear and confirm those long-held principles for the good of the nation and of the military.” 

The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign.