On October 18, 2024, Law Enforcement Today had the following headline, which passed by almost unnoticed: “DoD secretly reauthorizes bill that would allow military intervention domestically…and adds ability to use deadly force.”
The reissue of Department of Defense (DoD) Directive 5240.01 was quietly put into effect on September 27, 2024, six weeks before our presidential election. It is a formalized license to kill.
Why? Because the Democrat party has determined that civil unrest is bad after condoning the 2020 “mostly peaceful” riots that consumed much of our nation in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death. It provides protection for the military to kill under clear cover of authority. Imagine the outcry if this had occurred under Donald Trump. This directive was not necessary.
President Trump argued for the use of National Guard or military assistance during this period of civil unrest as local law enforcement was unable to control the rioting mobs, although he was talked out of using an authority that presidents have used regularly over the last one hundred years:
Hellbound and Down 