Ex-Colin Powell chief of staff says Michael Flynn should face court martial for 'incitement to insurrection'

Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is among the far-right Republicans saying President Donald Trump should declare martial law and reconduct the 2020 election because of widespread voter fraud. Many elections officials and national security experts, however, have stressed that there is no evidence that such fraud occurred or that President-elect Joe Biden didn't win the 2020 presidential election fairly. And when Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, spoke to MSNBC's Chris Hayes on Monday night, December 21, he expressed his outrage over Flynn's martial law suggestion and recommended that he face court martial.

Wilkerson told Hayes, "I have to commend all those people out there in every state who worked so hard to deliver a free and fair election. At the same time I saw that, I have to say my fears are somewhat significant with a former lieutenant general in the United States Army saying what Flynn said with regard to martial law and going to the battleground states and essentially reconducting the election. Were I the secretary of defense, I'd call him back to active duty — which is in the prerogative of the secretary of defense — and I'd court martial him."

The former Colin Powell chief of staff, who considers Flynn a "disgrace to his uniform," added, "at a minimum, I'd cite him for incitement to insurrection. This is not something that a military officer should do…. He needs to be rebuked. He needs to be reprimanded. And it needs to be done officially."

The 75-year-old Wilkerson was also highly critical of pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell and former Breitbart Media Chairman Steve Bannon — two other extremists who have been making baseless claims of widespread voter fraud.

"These other people like Bannon and Powell and so forth, they're sycophants who are seeking whatever they can gain from the magic aura of this man before it dissipates. It frightens me as to the things they could do if the 25^th Amendment or something like it is not implemented and we don't remove (Trump) from office."