Former JAGs file brief opposing Trump administration’s use of military lawyers to prosecute civilians

The Trump administration’s efforts to militarize civilian society are now spilling into courtrooms with the deployment of military lawyers from the Judge Advocates General (JAG) corps filling vacancies at U.S. Attorneys’ offices in Minnesota, Washington D.C., and Tennessee. These efforts to install military lawyers in Justice Department roles shatter historical norms and the law while posing genuine national security risks, according to 11 former JAGs who filed an amicus brief in U.S. District Court in Minnesota today.

“The American tradition of separating the military from civilian law enforcement is foundational to our republic,” they wrote in their brief, filed in the case U.S. v. Johnson. “The Founders forged their deep aversion to a domestic military presence in the crucible of the British occupation and violent clashes like the Boston Massacre. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson indicted King George III for ‘affecting to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.’”

This new practice — appointing JAGs to serve as Special AUSAs to prosecute routine criminal cases with no connection to the military whatsoever — risks upended long-held civ-mil norms, further politicizing the military, and further militarizing society.

It is also blatantly unlawful: the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prohibits military personnel from engaging in law enforcement activity. Deploying military prosecutors into the civilian justice system undermines faith in our legal system, corrodes civilian trust of the military, and depletes resources necessary for our military to safeguard our national security. 

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