How to Fix the Insurrection Act
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 28 September 2022
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For much of its history, the United States has had a single law on the books that governs when the president can deploy the military to enforce federal law within the United States: the Insurrection Act. While the act hasn't been invoked in decades, it played an important role in several recent controversies, including the acts of Jan. 6. Now, some scholars have written the Jan. 6 commission, urging that it be included in the broader set of reforms that committee is reportedly getting ready to endorse.
To learn more, Lawfare senior editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with the two authors of the recent submission to the committee: Liza Goitein, senior director of the Liberty & National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, and her colleague Joseph Nunn, counsel at the same program. They discussed the history of the Insurrection Act, what they think makes it dangerous, and how Congress should try to fix it.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
| 0:04.0 | To access an ad-free version of the LawFair podcast, |
| 0:08.0 | become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash law fair. |
| 0:14.0 | That's patreon.com slash law fair. |
| 0:18.0 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, |
| 0:22.0 | rational security, chatter, law fair no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:32.0 | Some things lead you guessing. |
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| 0:53.0 | Our second close call was of course January 6th. |
| 1:01.0 | After the election, various Trump allies |
| 1:05.0 | like Michael Flynn and Sydney Powell started calling on Trump |
| 1:09.0 | to exercise all kinds of emergency powers |
| 1:12.0 | to overturn the election results and the interaction act was one of them. |
| 1:16.0 | Now, most of what these people were calling for was pure fantasy. |
| 1:20.0 | Trump would have had no legal authority to do what they were recommending. |
| 1:24.0 | But on January 6th itself, after the attack started, |
... |
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