Posse Comitatus Act
48
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Search complete. 48 mentions across 28 episodes found for "Posse Comitatus Act".
Oct 19, 2026
Loren VossPANELIST
DC said, "Yes, you could," and cited to Trump v. Cook and said, you know, "You're, you're deciding on a judgment, not on the opinions." Um, and it went back and forth, but so that is where we ended.
Loren VossPANELIST
I think there are a lot of open questions here, and then, you know, just to flag, they haven't reached any of the issues on, you know, what are they actually doing on the streets if they're playing chess or doing law enforcement, and what that means for the Posse Comitatus Act.
Loren VossPANELIST
Um, and then they touched on the, like, command and control of the federal government over National Guards and militia statuses, but that wasn't part of the district court's ruling, so they kinda danced around that topic, and they didn't really address it.
Loren VossPANELIST
So that's where we are.
Mark GreenSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
stop the military, the federal military occupation of our neighborhoods.
Mark GreenSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act explicitly prohibits using federal troops against U.S. citizens unless there's a bona fide rebellion or insurrection that overwhelms local authorities, like obviously the Civil War in 1861 and state-sponsored terrorism in the South during Jim Crow.
Mark GreenSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
The founders were very wary of having a big standing army that could be used against civilians or to sow violence rather than prevent it.
Mark GreenSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Presidents cannot be allowed to assemble personal armed militia to menace, injure, or kill critics, obviously.
28 MINS LATER
Mark GreenSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Though not the wishes of fossil fools and their allies in a government that refuses to admit that glaciers are melting, and wildfires spreading.
Mark GreenSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Fourth, stop the military, the federal military occupation of our neighborhoods.
Mark GreenSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act explicitly prohibits using federal troops against U.S. citizens unless there's a bona fide rebellion or insurrection that overwhelms local authorities.
Mark GreenSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
like obviously the Civil War in 1861 and state-sponsored terrorism in the South during Jim Crow.
Rob BontaGUEST
I was almost rolling my eyes like, why is this important? Why am I in this class? And lo and behold, most of our cases have some sort of Administrative Procedure Act claim where there's not an appropriate notice and comment, or they've done something that's arbitrary and capricious without a reasoned, articulated rationale, or it's contrary to law.
Rob BontaGUEST
And some of these areas You know, you would never think that you would need to do research on because you couldn't imagine the need to enforce the Posse Comitatus Act and to make sure that our military isn't being wrongfully deployed on our own domestic cities for improper reasons.
Rob BontaGUEST
So we're learning some new areas of law as well, and we need to be... open to researching areas of the law that don't have a lot of court cases interpreting them for good reason because incidents that require their application have not come up very often in the course of history here in the United States of America.
Michael PopokHOST
Yeah, as a history, an American history buff, I used to look and read those pages about Andrew Jackson and, you know, senators beating each other with canes on the Senate floor.
Joy SilverHOST
Under Title 18, Section 592 of the U.S. Code, Deploying armed troops or federal personnel to a polling place is a criminal offense punishable by up to five years in prison, except in cases of repelling hostile foreign attacks.
Joy SilverHOST
The Posse Comitatus Act also prohibits federal military forces from engaging in domestic law enforcement.
Joy SilverHOST
Since 1909, no general exception has been made for keeping the peace.
Joy SilverHOST
Now the battleground has shifted.
Brian DriscollGUEST
with our near peers and the people who invented us in the military with the SEALs down at Damnock and the Army's Special Operations Forces based out of Fort Bragg and their tier one levels in JSOC.
Brian DriscollGUEST
In 1983, the FBI hostage rescue team was born because of Posse Comitatus, our military counterparts can't operate within the United States.
Brian DriscollGUEST
And in the lead up to the 1984 Olympics in LA, the hostage rescue team was born and the Army Special Operations Force invented us and built us from scratch in 1983.
Brian DriscollGUEST
And then we've evolved
RobertPANELIST
From what it looks like, the DC government, uh, was arguing that President Trump is more limited in how he can use the National Guard than even state governors are, uh, and how they can deploy National Guard units.
RobertPANELIST
And really, the crux of this is the, uh, potential or the argument from, from Washington, DC, uh, DC city government that this is a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.
MattHOST
Okay.
MattHOST
Well, we'll, we'll definitely keep an eye on it.
Dan HermanSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
As a result, an officer who issues such an order would likely be subject to all the penalties listed in Section 592, including up to five years in prison, in addition to potential court-martial consequences, such as dishonorable discharge.
Dan HermanSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Protecting a polling site is also likely a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, since protecting is traditionally a law enforcement function, not one permitted to be undertaken by armed military personnel.
Dan HermanSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Invoking the Insurrection Act might address the Posse Comitatus Act problem, but it would not override Section 592.
Dan HermanSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Further, polling sites are state, not federal property, which means that troops' presence cannot be justified by the protecting federal property argument invoked during the 2025 Los Angeles National Guard deployment.
Dan HermanSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Seize these voting machines.
Dan HermanSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
If the military blocks off a major road to a polling site, leading to massive backups and potentially hours of traffic, many Americans may simply choose not to vote.
Dan HermanSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Making voting more inconvenient could suppress voter turnout, and blocking access to polling places does exactly that.
Dan HermanSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Absent an invocation of the Insurrection Act, this order would also likely be illegal under the Posse Comitatus Act, which bars using federal troops to execute the laws, except where the Constitution or an act of Congress expressly authorizes it.
MacArthurUNKNOWN
Uh
Cornelia T. L. PillardMODERATOR
... argument that, that this is not federalization and therefore running up against Posse Comitatus?
MacArthurUNKNOWN
So I think there's, I think there's a big difference between the federalization statute and the DC Militia Code.
MacArthurUNKNOWN
I mean, one that goes directly to this point we're talking about, aid- aiding the civil authorities.
JillHOST
Which raises an important question about domestic military deployment as well.
JillHOST
Change number five focuses on getting soldiers off the streets, referencing the 1807 Insurrection Act and the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act.
JimHOST
Yeah.
JimHOST
The author notes that the Insurrection Act hasn't had a meaningful update in over 150 years.
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