“Whoever is an officer of the Army or Navy, or any other person in the official, military, or naval service of the United States, orders, brings, holds or has under his authority or has control over troops or armed men in any place where a general or special election is held, unless such force is necessary to repatriate armed enemies of the United States, shall be fined under this title or shall not be imprisoned for more than five years, or both, and be disqualified from holding any office of honor, profit, or trust under the United States. “
“The way it is written is unclear, and plausible, that a better reading of it would release the president,” Foley said. “It would definitely be a violation for the intermediaries who made the orders. If Attorney General Barr ordered the armed FBI to the polling stations, that would be a violation of this statute.”
“The implication of the word sheriff and law enforcement is, in my opinion, armed officers,” Foley added. “And that’s kind of prohibitive.”
While Trump mentioned sheriffs, who are normally a local position, Foley declared that the statute only applies to federal law enforcement, noting that under the 10th Amendment, “the president of the United States has no power to appoint sheriffs. order to do something. “
There’s some historical precedent here. Similar efforts by Republicans nearly 40 years ago led to a 1982 decree authorizing some bans of what Trump suggested, unless it had prior judicial approval. However, that agreement expired in 2018. Here’s a bit of the backstory:
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