The line between the MAGA fringe and the Republican Party continues to blur as Donald Trump’s surrogates participate in the preemptive “rigged” election conspiracy theories that he is peddling before Election Day. Former presidential anti-vaxxer candidate-turned Trump supporter Robert F. Kennedy Jr. jumped on the counterprogramming Wednesday to promote an easily debunked conspiracy theory that’s been making the rounds.
“This is the kind of inflammatory poison that divides our nation and inspires assassins,” Kennedy wrote on social media site X, in response to Vice President Kamala Harris’ press conference where she warned the country about Trump’s fetishism of Nazis. “It’s particularly ironic since Biden/Harris have just pushed through DoD Directive 5240.01 giving the Pentagon power—for the first time in history—to use lethal force to kill Americans on U.S. soil who protest government policies,” Kennedy said.
If you’re asking yourself, what the !@#$ is he talking about, you are not alone. As many people in the comments rightly pointed out, DoD Directive 5240.01 is a George W. Bush-era document, from 2007, that does not and never has created the right for the military to employ “lethal force to kill” American protesters.
“The provisions in [the directive] are not new, and do not authorize the Secretary of Defense to use lethal force against U.S. citizens, contrary to rumors and rhetoric circulating on social media,” Sue Gough, a Department of Defense spokesperson told The War Horse.
The outlet also explained that while it was true that the Pentagon updated the 22-page document in late September, military policies are routinely updated—as DoD Directive 5240.01 was previously updated under the Trump administration.
Directive 5240.01 has a narrow focus: It only addresses military intelligence, and the section that has circulated online specifically deals with intelligence assistance to civilian law enforcement.
The paragraph that contains the term “lethal force” refers to a requirement that the Secretary of Defense—the highest level of the Defense Department—must now authorize military intelligence assistance to civilian law enforcement when lethal force might be involved.
Kennedy had promoted this baseless theory earlier in the day, during remarks he made in front of Turning Point Action PAC. But Kennedy didn't come up with this dangerous conspiracy theory on his own, he’s just selling it. The entire MAGA world has been ablaze with the made-up martial law boogieman conspiracy theory for a few weeks.
The Center for an Informed Public out of the University of Washington analyzed the birth and growth of this misinformation dump. According to their analysis, a DoD social media account posted the updated directive on Oct. 3. That same day, “Natalie Winters, a co-host on Steve Bannon’s War Room and self-described investigative journalist, posts about the 2024 directive on X. The post focuses on—and speculates about—slightly different wording in a provision that prohibits DoD staff from engaging in assassinations.”
Two days later, a “newsbrokering” account picked up a similar story and pushed it out on X and Facebook. Newsbrokering accounts curate and disseminate news information. The story takes off a couple of weeks later when it is picked up by another newsbrokering account. At the same time this was happening, an anti-vaccine website published a story tying the erroneous understanding of the directive to the upcoming election.
Shortly thereafter, prominent looney toons like the spectacularly wrongheaded Naomi Wolf went on “The Alex Jones Show” to promote this new iteration of the “deep state” theory that Democrats are setting up for martial law no matter what the results of the election are.
Disgraced former Gen. Mike Flynn took time away from promising to hold military tribunals if Trump is victorious in November, to peddle this fearmongering conspiracy theory to his followers on X.
Joseph Nunn, a lawyer with the Liberty & National Security program at the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice, told The War Horses “There’s nothing here. People like Michael Flynn should know how to read a DOD directive.”
It’s hard to know whether Flynn does know better, and maybe more importantly, whether or not any of these folks care anymore about knowing anything other than that they want power.
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