If a coup is your thing, it's good to have a plan.
A lawyer argued that mass riots triggered by Trump's power grab could be crushed by US troops: indictment
As Donald Trump tried to remain in power following his 2020 election loss, some lawyers tried to dissuade him.
In a conversation on January 3, 2021 — days before Congress was set to certify now-President Joe Biden as the victor of the 2020 election — one deputy White House counsel had a warning.
He said that, if Trump remained in office on inauguration day, "there would be riots in every major city in the United States."
But Jeffrey Clark, a top Justice Department lawyer at the time — and who the new indictment against Trump alleges was a co-conspirator — had a different answer: Call in the troops.
"That's why there's an Insurrection Act," Clark responded to the deputy White House counsel, according to the indictment against Trump unsealed by a federal grand jury in Washington, DC, on Thursday.
The law, which has been invoked only a handful of times in the past century, authorizes the president to order the military to quell unrest within the United States.
A lawyer argued that mass riots triggered by Trump's power grab could be crushed by US troops: indictment
As Donald Trump tried to remain in power following his 2020 election loss, some lawyers tried to dissuade him.
In a conversation on January 3, 2021 — days before Congress was set to certify now-President Joe Biden as the victor of the 2020 election — one deputy White House counsel had a warning.
He said that, if Trump remained in office on inauguration day, "there would be riots in every major city in the United States."
But Jeffrey Clark, a top Justice Department lawyer at the time — and who the new indictment against Trump alleges was a co-conspirator — had a different answer: Call in the troops.
"That's why there's an Insurrection Act," Clark responded to the deputy White House counsel, according to the indictment against Trump unsealed by a federal grand jury in Washington, DC, on Thursday.
The law, which has been invoked only a handful of times in the past century, authorizes the president to order the military to quell unrest within the United States.