I've been thinking about the retired officers who did January 6th
There’s a common feeling here that people like Michael Flynn and the pilot who was convicted yesterday of entering the Capitol with flex cuffs on January 6th: they should be recalled to active duty and court martialed.
I don’t want that, and neither do you.
10 USC 1161(a) gives the President of the United States the authority to drop from the rolls of the service any commissioned officer who is convicted of a felony in a civilian court and sentenced to prison. The effect of being dropped from the rolls is to completely erase any evidence you were ever in the military. Civilian lawyers who specialize in Uniformed Code of Military Justice defense consider this an administrative death penalty. Rather than “you were a terrible person so we’re going to issue you a really bad discharge and send you on your way,” this is “you were a terrible person so we’re going to create a 30-year hole in your personal history.”
And here’s the best part: it’s an administrative action, and it can’t be rescinded. President Biden can sit at his desk on his last day in office six years from now and turn these pricks into unpersons without having to involve the highly overloaded military justice system whatsoever. Because it is so severe and unusual the President is the only one with the authority to do it.
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