Scott O’Grady, the nominee for a top post at the Pentagon, retweeted messages that falsely said President-elect Joe Biden had won the election in a “coup” and that President Trump should declare martial law, according to a report by CNN’s KFILE.
Trump nominated O’Grady to be assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs at the Pentagon.
Biden is set to take office on Jan. 20 and it seems unlikely the Senate would act to confirm O’Grady before then. His nomination was sent to the Senate on Monday, and comes after a series of resignations at the Pentagon following Trump’s firing of former Defense Secretary Mark Esper via tweet last month.
The retweet of a message about martial law could be particularly troublesome for O’Grady given his nomination to the Pentagon.
The CNN review of the tweets, which are protected on the platform and can only be seen by approved followers, showed that on Nov. 25 O’Grady retweeted a post that said, “Trump won & Biden & his Comrades will now attempt a coup,” next to a doctored image of Biden beside Chinese President Xi Jinping.
On Dec. 2, the former fighter pilot and 2020 Veterans for Trump chair reportedly retweeted an account that shared an article that said former national security adviser Michael Flynn had shared a petition that called for martial law.
He then retweeted the same account, which suggested that Trump should declare martial law.
“I don’t know who needs to hear this,” the account said, according to CNN, “But calling for martial law is not a bad idea when there is an attempted coup against the president and this country happening right now.”
The CNN review also found that O’Grady has repeatedly claimed that Trump won the election in a “landslide fashion.”
Trump received 232 electoral votes to Biden’s 306. Biden also won the popular vote handily, though Biden’s margin of victory in the states of Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin amounted to about 50,000 votes. If those three states had gone to Trump, there would have been a 269-269 tie in the Electoral College, sending the contest to a vote by state delegation in the House.
O’Grady and the Defense Department did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.