Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts Trump’s Insurrection Claims Could Lead American Democracy Off a Cliff
77 snips
Oct 11, 2025 In this compelling discussion, military justice expert Eugene R. Fidell and retired Air Force judge advocate Stephen J. Lepper dive into how Trump's legal battles pose a major threat to the military's role under the Constitution. They analyze the implications of presidential immunity on military orders and loyalty. The guests highlight a dangerous shift in the normalization of military presence in U.S. cities and connect recent actions in the Caribbean to broader issues of command authority. They also stress the importance of legal resources for service members grappling with conflicting orders.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Immunity Ruling Reshapes Military Law
- The Supreme Court's Trump v. United States immunity ruling has radically altered the legal terrain for military orders.
- That change makes it much harder for military officers to assess whether orders are lawful before following them.
Two Oaths, One Dangerous Conflict
- Military members swear an oath that creates two obligations: obey superior orders and follow the law when they conflict.
- That duality becomes dangerous when a president claims sole authority to define what is lawful.
Real-World Echoes Of Court Hypotheticals
- Extrajudicial uses of force at sea show that hypotheticals from the Court's opinion are already real.
- Those operations raise urgent questions about who in the chain of command is legally accountable.
