Your fact-checks will appear here
Pursuant to
The District of Columbia National Guard is legally distinct from state guards: it normally reports to the President rather than a mayor or governor, which has allowed recent presidential-directed depl...
Refusals of military orders happen across history in two broad categories: lawful disobedience of manifestly illegal orders (e.g., orders to target civilians) and acts of insubordination or political ...
The historical record shows the federal government has used armed forces and federalized troops to enforce school desegregation, most famously in Little Rock in 1957 and in Alabama in the 1960s; those...
The key finding is that the Posse Comitatus Act does not itself bar governors from using their state National Guard for civil unrest, but it constrains federal military involvement by requiring carefu...
Courts and military law define an “illegal” or “unlawful” order as one that is contrary to the U.S. Constitution, federal law, or beyond the authority of the issuing official — and service members can...
Key U.S. military-law precedents on obedience and unlawful orders center on high‑profile criminal prosecutions like Lt. William Calley for My Lai, plus federal civil rulings about using troops domesti...
Service members have a legal right—and in specific circumstances a legal duty—to refuse orders that are manifestly unlawful, but exercising that right carries substantial professional and criminal ris...
There is no established instance in United States history where martial law was declared or used with the explicit, successful purpose of canceling or directly overturning a regularly scheduled federa...
The National Guard performs two distinct missions: a activated by governors for disasters, civil unrest, and law enforcement assistance, and a supporting overseas military operations as part of the U....
Federal law gives the president wide statutory tools to federalize or recall National Guard and Reserve members — including retired reservists up to age 60 in many circumstances — but state control an...
The key finding is that instead, ROE depended on deployment status, fragmented command approvals, and mission-specific directives that initially limited Guard actions to support roles such as traffic ...
The core legal authority for federal activation of state National Guard units is 10 U.S.C. § 12406, which authorizes the President to call National Guard members into federal service for and requires ...
The National Guard may be used for domestic law enforcement primarily when protecting federal personnel, property, or to restore order under specific statutory authorities, but —notably the Posse Comi...