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By AFP 
1 hour ago
Brian knowlton
Washington – With Joe Biden to take office a month away, Donald Trump remains obsessed with his failed attempt to reverse the 2020 election, and his advisers reportedly float the idea of invoking martial law, sparking outrage and disbelief in Washington .
Trump has largely been kept out of sight as several major issues unfold in the United States – from a massive cyberattack to high-risk talks about a massive Covid-19 aid package to the launch of a landmark campaign of vaccinations
But, according to reports from The New York Times, CNN, and The Wall Street Journal, the president found time on Friday to oversee a turbulent meeting at the White House to discuss new ways to resist or overturn Biden’s victory, with the idea of Deploy the army to assist in their fight raised, before being shot down.
Multiple reports said Trump also considered taking over the voting machines to inspect them; and appointing Sidney Powell, an attorney on his campaign team who has put forward outlandish conspiracy theories, as special counsel to further investigate Trump’s unsubstantiated allegations of mass voter fraud.
Present at the hectic Oval Office meeting was retired General Michael Flynn, who was briefly a national security adviser before resigning under pressure, admitting to lying to the FBI and then in November being pardoned by Trump.
Flynn recently told a Newsmax television interviewer that Trump could “take military capabilities and place them in those (battlefield) states and basically rerun our election.”
Trump denied the reports about Friday’s meeting in a tweet shortly after midnight Saturday, saying, “Martial law = fake news. Just more deliberately bad reports!”
Several high-ranking military officials have made it clear that they will not participate in any effort to overturn the results of an election that has been certified by all states and confirmed by the Electoral College.
“The US military has no role in determining the outcome of an American election,” Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and Army Chief of Staff James McConville said in a statement on Friday.
Trump, in any case, would need congressional approval to invoke martial law, according to a study conducted earlier this year by the Brennan Center for Justice.
But the stories of the extraordinary meeting, which supposedly became “shouting matches” at times, surprised all over Washington, generating strong condemnation from some quarters, while others shook their heads in consternation.
“It’s not going to happen,” Republican senator and frequent Trump critic Mitt Romney bluntly said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” adding: “It’s not going anywhere.”
Romney, who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2012, added: “It’s really sad in many respects, and shameful, because the president could, right now, be writing the last chapter of this administration with a victory lap … “on the historic vaccine launch.
“He could be defending this story, but instead he left Washington with conspiracy theories and things so crazy and crazy that people are shaking their heads wondering what the hell happened to this man.”
Many of the president’s advisers forcefully rejected the notion of martial law at Friday’s meeting, according to the New York Times.
But John Bolton, a former Trump national security adviser who has been a frequent critic since he left the administration in September, called the reported content of the meeting “egregious.”
“There is no other way to describe it,” he told CNN on Saturday night. “It’s incredible, almost certainly unprecedented.”
But he also said that conversation was not atypical of his former boss, and a case of “incompetence” rather than “malevolence.”
Bolton added: “He is not fit for work.”
Jen Psaki, appointed press secretary in the Biden administration who will take office on January 20, refused to be carried away by the matter and told “Fox News Sunday” that she would let others explain “what is happening on Earth. in the Oval Office and the White house. “
He added: “The leadership of the Republican Party has recognized the result of the elections.”
But Pete Buttigieg, Biden’s designated transportation secretary, was more forthcoming.
“Well, obviously, it is irresponsible and dangerous,” he told CNN.
“At the end of the day, this is a land of laws and the American people have spoken.”
The Trump campaign has lost dozens of legal challenges to Biden’s election, and the window for more such action is nearly closed.
But the president’s continued resistance has drawn vocal support from many at his base and has allowed him to raise millions of dollars.
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