Would President Donald Trump deploy active-duty military forces to American cities?
"It depends. I don’t think we’ll have to. We have very strong powers to do it. The National Guard is customary, and we have a very powerful National Guard," Trump told Sean Spicer in a recent interview on Newsmax. "As far as going beyond that? Sure, if it was necessary. We have Antifa. We have anarchists. We have terrorists, looters. We have a lot of bad people in those groups."
In regards to civil unrest and rioting in New York City, Trump said that "if they don't get it straightened out soon, I'll take care of it."
Trump's recent comments about potential military deployments happened after five days of both peaceful civil rights protests and violent riots and looting in response to a police officer in Minneapolis kneeling on the neck of an unarmed black man named George Floyd, who died in police custody. The police officer was arrested and is now charged with second-degree unintentional murder. Three other officers involved in the arrest have been arrested and charged with aiding and abetting unintentional murder and manslaughter.
The debate about the use of active-duty soldiers to quell civil unrest in American cities has been a politically volatile one in recent days. The National Guard was called up, but over the weekend the 82nd Airborne Division was also put on alert, their Immediate Response Force (IRF) told to prepare for a domestic deployment. In the early morning hours of June 2, C-17 aircraft flew Immediate Response Battalion 1 from Pope Army Air Field at Fort Bragg in North Carolina to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters joined them as part of the response force. The Pentagon would only say that "we can confirm active-duty soldiers are in the national capital region and that they are on a shortened alert status and available for deployment if necessary."
While the Pentagon was trying to keep the deployment of paratroopers near Washington D.C. quiet, high-level political debates were taking place about the domestic deployment of active-duty soldiers.
Trump could invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, which acts as an exception to Posse Comitatus. The Army Domestic Law handbook lays out the instances in which the Insurrection Act could be used to deploy active-duty soldiers domestically. These instances are when a state governor requests assistance during an insurrection, a rebellion, or in instances where an insurrection or violent act violates citizen's constitutional rights and the state government is unable or unwilling to enforce federal law.
While riots broke out across the country, Defense Secretary Mark Esper was part of a conference call over the weekend with state governors in which he said, "I think the sooner that you mass and dominate the battlespace, the quicker this dissipates and we can get back to the right normal."
An audio recording of the interview was leaked to several news outlets. Esper's military vernacular and referring to American cities as a "battlespace" was refuted by many, including former Secretary of Defense Gen. James Mattis who penned an op-ed in The Atlantic on Wednesday. Speaking out for the first time publicly against the current administration, Mattis blasted Trump and Esper.
"We must reject any thinking of our cities as a 'battlespace' that our uniformed military is called upon to 'dominate.' At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors," Mattis wrote. "Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict — a false conflict — between the military and civilian society," he said, almost certainly referencing the deployment of 82nd Airborne Division paratroopers and other active-duty military police units to the outskirts of the city.
Under increasing pressure, Esper held a press conference on Wednesday about the military and its role during a time of civil unrest.
Esper said the National Guard is best suited for supporting local law enforcement during this time.
"I say this not only as Secretary of Defense, but as a former soldier, and a former member of the National Guard," he said. "The option to use active-duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort and only in the most urgent and dire of situations. We are not in one of those situations now. I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act."
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that Esper had given the 82nd Airborne's IRB 1 at Joint Base Andrews the order to return to Fort Bragg.
After the press conference, Esper was called to the White House for a meeting. Politico reported that White House officials were not happy with the tone of the press conference as it seemed to contradict Trump's tough stance. After the meeting, Esper reversed course and the Pentagon rescinded their order to the IRB 1 to return to Fort Bragg.
Later that same day, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany stated, "as of right now, Secretary Esper is still Secretary Esper. Should the president lose faith we will all learn about that in the future."
The 82nd Airborne troops remained on military bases just outside of Washington, D.C. for a further 24 hours.
On Thursday, Esper began sending the 82nd Airborne paratroopers back to Fort Bragg, the Associated Press reported. The active-duty soldiers are scheduled for a phased withdrawal back to their home stations, anticipating that their deployment for riot control will not become necessary.
Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington D.C. posted on Twitter a letter she sent to the federal government on Friday morning requesting Trump withdrawal all federal law enforcement and military on federal orders from the city. In the letter, she cites that the violence is de-escalating and the protests are peaceful. She also states that federal personnel are antagonizing the protestors and making the situation worse. She also wrote that there are unidentified federal personnel operating outside of established chains of command.
Officially, active-duty troops were only forward-deployed to the national capital region but never entered Washington, D.C. itself. Approximately 4,500 National Guardsmen remain in the city as of Friday.