With regard to former Sec. of Defense Mark Esper’s chilling account that then-President Trump wanted troops confronting protestors in Lafayette Park to “shoot them in the legs”, I’d love to hear someone ask the follow up question whether Trump understood that people would fall & get hit in torso.
Except, as @mglovesfun.bsky.social points out, in the entirety of the United States, Chief Justice Roberts and his fellow fascism-enablers have declared commanding troops to shoot protestors to be an “official act” that cannot be the basis for criminal prosecution.
Of the President. I feel like the troops following the illegal order could still be prosecuted. Though they wouldn’t be and Trump would pardon them anyway.
It would be an impressive legal knot for Roberts to tie himself into to make Trump absolutely immune, but we can still prosecute troops for following his orders that he can't be prosecuted for.
I'm not saying Roberts isn't up to the task. Just that I'll be impressed by the legal backflips.
He will just say that, send the troops who executed the order off to jail, then thevery next day send troops who didn't do what Trump told them to do off to jail as well*.
Yeah, I’ve seen some folks much more knowledgeable about me discussing this (lawyers & ex-military folks) and the consensus seemed to be that even w/o a pardon on offer, the incentives run to following the order & getting court martialed for it rather than refuse & also risk court martial.
Basically a regular enlisted soldier isn’t a lawyer and is really only going to be safe disobeying an order that is blatantly illegal on its face—a clear war crime.
But I’d assume that. at least at first, the live rounds are only coming out in response to situations where it’s not night & day.
In theory you could look at Rules of Engagement, did higher-ups in the chain of command express opposition to the order etc
But Trump can just pardon anyone who does follow it, could command that the soldier be returned to active duty. Could give them a goddamned Medal of Honor!
