According to an exclusive report from Newsweek, the growing coronavirus pandemic prompted the U.S. military to issue standby orders in case huge swaths of the executive branch or even Congress and the Supreme Court become infected -- plans that include "evacuating Washington and "devolving" leadership to second-tier officials in remote and quarantined locations."
Other possibilities such as widespread violence and numerous potential disaster scenarios are being taken into consideration.
"Above-Top Secret contingency plans already exist for what the military is supposed to do if all the Constitutional successors are incapacitated," Newsweek's William Arkin reports. "Standby orders were issued more than three weeks ago to ready these plans, not just to protect Washington but also to prepare for the possibility of some form of martial law."
Documents reviewed by Newsweek show that the underground laws could even hand over power to military commanders should the situation devolve to a point where normal Constitutional provisions for government succession are disabled.
"We're in new territory," one senior officer told Arkin.
Read the full report over at Newsweek.