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Ten former U.S. defense secretaries, including Donald Rumsfeld and former Vice President Dick Cheney, penned an op-ed in the Washington Post warning against the use of the military to resolve disputes over November's presidential election.
The piece follows a December Post op-ed that said government officials are worried that President Trump could invoke the Insurrection Act in case violence breaks out when Congress counts electoral votes on Jan. 6 and then use the military to redo elections in certain states.
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"American elections and the peaceful transfers of power that result are hallmarks of our democracy," the former defense secretaries wrote. "With one singular and tragic exception that cost the lives of more Americans than all of our other wars combined, the United States has had an unbroken record of such transitions since 1789, including in times of partisan strife, war, epidemics and economic depression. This year should be no exception."
The former secretaries warned that getting the military involved "would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory."
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The op-ed's authors include former Trump administration officials James Mattis and Mark Esper. Ashton Carter, William Cohen, Robert Gates, Chuck Hagel, Leon Panetta and William Perry also cosigned the op-ed.
They noted that all challenges and processes have played out and said the country must now accept the results and move forward.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney (left) and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld attend a commissioning ceremony on board the USS Gerald R. Ford CVN 78 on July 22, 2017, in Norfolk, Va. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
"Our elections have occurred. Recounts and audits have been conducted. Appropriate challenges have been addressed by the courts," they said. "Governors have certified the results. And the electoral college has voted. The time for questioning the results has passed; the time for the formal counting of the electoral college votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statute, has arrived."
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A growing number of Senate Republicans have vowed to object to electoral votes from several swing states when they are counted at Wednesday's joint session of Congress. They have called for a bipartisan commission comprised of members of the House, Senate and Supreme Court to conduct a final investigation of the states' elections before a final victor is declared.
This would be similar to what happened in 1877 after the 1876 election, when returns from Florida, Louisana and South Carolina – and one elector from Oregon – were disputed. Congress set up a commission to determine how the electoral votes should be allocated, reserving the right to accept or reject the commission's findings. In the end, Congress awarded all 19 of the contested electoral votes to Rutherford B. Hayes, who was elected with 185 electoral votes to Samuel J. Tilden's 184.
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