When asked whether United States President Donald Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act, Vice President JD Vance said this week that Trump is “looking at all his options”.The decision would allow Trump to deploy the US military domestically for law enforcement purposes without congressional authorisation and over the objections of state governors.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listVance’s October 12 comment on NBC’s Meet the Press was just one of many in recent months about Trump’s ambitions to send the National Guard to Democratic cities such as Portland and Chicago.But the legal terms being tossed around – Insurrection Act, plenary authority, martial law, Posse Comitatus Act – have traditionally not been commonly used in US politics. These terms defy simple definitions after decades of interpretation by the courts.We explain what they are:What is the Insurrection Act?This 1807 law allows the US president to deploy federal military personnel domestically to suppress rebellion and enforce civilian law.Invoking the Insurrection Act temporarily suspends another US law that forbids federal troops from conducting civilian law enforcement. A president can invoke the law after determining that “unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion” against the federal government make it “impracticable to enforce” US law “by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings”, the law says. In those cases, the Insurrection Act would allow the president to direct federal troops to enforce US laws or stop a rebellion. Advertisement The law is broadly written and does not define terms such as “insurrection” or “rebellion”. The US S …
