California spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi on Friday took an unprecedented step by asking the Joint Chiefs of Staff about “available precautions” to prevent President Trump from taking military action abroad or using his exclusive authority to launch nuclear weapons in the last days of its term.
In a phone call to Council President General Mark A. Milley, Pelosi appeared to be trying to get the Pentagon leadership to basically remove Trump from his authority as commander in chief. This could be achieved by ignoring the president’s orders or delaying them by questioning whether they were issued legally.
But General Milley appears to have made no commitment. Unless the cabinet invokes the 25th Amendment or removes Trump through impeachment in the House and sentencing in the Senate, it is unconstitutional to challenge the commander-in-chief’s legal orders.
Pelosi’s request, which she announced to the Democratic caucus as an effort to prevent “an unbalanced president” from using nuclear codes, was involved in the policy of seeking a second impeachment from Trump.
Col. Dave Butler, a spokesman for General Milley, confirmed that the phone call with the speaker had taken place, but described it as informative. “He answered her questions about the nuclear command authority process,” he said.
But some Defense Department officials clearly resented being asked to act outside the legal authority of the 25th Amendment and saw this as further evidence of a failed political system. They said that some political leaders were trying to get the Pentagon to do the job of Congress and cabinet secretaries, who have legal options to remove a president.
Mr. Trump, they noted, is still the commander in chief; unless it is removed, the military is required to follow its legal orders. While military officers may refuse to carry out orders that they consider to be illegal – or delay the process by sending these orders for careful legal review – they cannot remove the president from the chain of command. That would amount to a military coup, officials said.
But two former government officials with close ties to the national security establishment said they saw signs that Trump’s advisers were, in the words of one, “diverting” the president by failing to raise issues that could lead him to become military action.
The issue that most concerned the authorities is Iran’s announcement that it has started enriching uranium with 20% purity – almost the quality needed to make a bomb. In December, Trump called for military options that could be taken in response to Iran’s escalating nuclear fuel production, but was deterred by a number of senior officials, including General Milley and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
In a note to his mostly Democratic, Pelosi said he asked General Milley about “the precautions available to prevent an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing launch codes and ordering a nuclear attack. The situation of this unbalanced president could not be more dangerous, and we must do everything we can to protect the American people from his unbalanced attack on our country and our democracy ”.
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Other Democrats have adopted the theme. “The president must be removed,” said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont. “I hate to think he’s down there, having access to nuclear weapons and everything.”
This was not the first time that the problem has arisen in American history, or in relation to Mr. Trump.
In the final days of Richard M. Nixon’s presidency, defense secretary James R. Schlesinger quietly issued a series of orders that, if Mr. Nixon intended to move or use nuclear weapons, commanders should either forward the request to him or Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger. Schlesinger, describing his actions only after Nixon stepped down, said he feared the president was drinking or that he might attack.
Michael Beschloss, the presidential historian, said Schlesinger told him several years ago that “he was concerned about Nixon’s physical and emotional state and wanted to make sure there was no danger of abusing the nuclear arsenal.”
Mr. Schlesinger died in 2014; Kissinger, 97, said several years ago that he was unaware of any of these orders.
In the 2016 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton also raised the question of Trump’s suitability to command the nuclear arsenal. “Imagine him in the Oval Office facing a real crisis,” she said in her speech at the Democratic National Convention. “A man you can attract with a tweet is not a man you can trust with nuclear weapons.”
During his presidency, Trump suggested using nuclear weapons only once: when he was in his first confrontation with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un in 2017. He threatened “fire and fury like the world has never seen” and later told advisers that he thought the threat forced Kim into diplomacy – although the series of three summit meetings with the North Korean leader did not lead to any disarmament he had envisaged.
Now, at the end of Trump’s presidency, Pelosi is again raising the specter of an unstable leader as part of his effort to pressure Republicans to join a second impeachment resolution – even if there is no time for a Senate trial.
Peter D. Feaver, professor of political science at Duke University who studied the armed forces, said the military could, in theory, physically restrict Trump’s access to nuclear codes because they provide the command, control and communications that link the arsenal president. nuclear. A military adviser to the so-called nuclear soccer ball that contains launch codes is just a few feet from the president at all times.
But legally, the military cannot deny the president access to the codes, unless the 25th Amendment has been activated.
“As long as President Trump is commander in chief, one of the military’s highest priority missions is to maintain connectivity between him and the nuclear arsenal, and I hope that’s what they are doing and will continue to do until the day of inauguration,” Said Mr. Feaver.
“This is a good example of people asking the military to solve a problem that is not up to the military to solve,” he added. “If Congress believes that President Trump should not have access to nuclear codes, then Congress has the ability to make this happen through impeachment.”
Feaver and other military experts said on Friday that Trump could not carry out orders to fire nuclear weapons on his own because of a series of controls that are in place. For example, the Pentagon may insist that orders be processed through a written legal process before executing them.
“Under the assumption that Speaker Pelosi seems to be imagining it, insisting that the request comes through regular channels – and not the President calling on his iPhone – would be like resisting a request, but in reality it would be insisting that it was legal,” he said. . Said Feaver.
He said the Pentagon could ask for a legal review from its own lawyers, the attorney general and others. “All of this would functionally fulfill what she is asking for and would be cool,” said Feaver.
David E. Sanger reported from Vermont and Eric Schmitt from Washington. Helene Cooper contributed reporting from Washington.