Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin sent letters on Tuesday to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, asking them to confirm that the Department of Defense will not send federal troops to polling locations or seize election materials during the midterm elections later this year.
Slotkin told the Associated Press that she believes the Trump administration is laying groundwork to challenge the legitimacy of the election results. She cited the president’s past statements about using the military to seize voting machines following his 2020 election loss, as well as his deployments of the National Guard to cities against Democratic leaders’ wishes and his deployment of active duty Marines to Los Angeles during an immigration enforcement operation in 2025.
During an April congressional hearing, Slotkin asked Hegseth whether he would comply with orders to seize ballots. Hegseth characterized the question as a “gotcha hypothetical” but stated he has never been ordered to do anything illegal and would not follow such orders. White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles denied in a Vanity Fair interview last year that the Trump administration would use the military to suppress voting in the midterms, calling such claims “categorically false.”
Federal law restricts the deployment of armed federal forces to election locations unless deemed “necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States.” If military involvement were to occur, it would likely involve the National Guard operating under state control. In 2020, Gen. Mark Milley, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, responded to a similar letter from Slotkin by reaffirming the principle of an apolitical military and noting that election disputes must be resolved through courts and Congress, not the military.
Article Attribution | Read More at Article Source
Article summary produced by Claude AI