Yale Law School graduate JD Vance was on the receiving end of a lecture from a former U.S. attorney for jumping in late on Sunday to defend Donald Trump in the squabble about issuing illegal orders to U.S. military members.
The president has been at war with Democrats in Congress who have served in the military for advising their brothers and sisters in arms not to follow any demand of the president that they believe is illegal.
Over the weekend, the president blew up at the advice and wrote on Truth Social, “THE TRAITORS THAT TOLD THE MILITARY TO DISOBEY MY ORDERS SHOULD BE IN JAIL RIGHT NOW, NOT ROAMING THE FAKE NEWS NETWORKS TRYING TO EXPLAIN THAT WHAT THEY SAID WAS OK.”
He added, “IT WASN’T, AND NEVER WILL BE! IT WAS SEDITION AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL, AND SEDITION IS A MAJOR CRIME. THERE CAN BE NO OTHER INTERPRETATION OF WHAT THEY SAID!”
That came after he threatened on Thursday, “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”
With Trump being criticized for his over-the-top response, Vance ran to his defense on Sunday by linking to a clip of Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) pressing her case on ABC her case against the president.
The vice president responded on X by writing, “If the president hasn't issued illegal orders, them (sic) members of Congress telling the military to defy the president is by definition illegal.”
That brought a swift response from the ex-US Attorney and University of Alabama School of Law professor Joyce Vance on her Substack platform, where she wrote, “That doesn’t make any sense.”
Noting Vance’s legal background, she added, “Anyone with a Yale Law School education should be in a position to understand that a) members of the military have an obligation not to follow an illegal order, b) that reminding them of that obligation neither violates the law nor instructs them to defy a legal order, and c) that using those false statements to claim that members of Congress who made the video they object to so strongly is not ‘by definition’ illegal, and certainly not for members of Congress who have speech and debate clause privilege even if there had been something incorrect about their statements.”
Having laid out her own legal opinion, she questioned the White House strategy for keeping the controversy alive.
“What is the administration’s point here? Do they contest that the military and the intelligence community should pursue concerns through their chain of command to prevent compliance with illegal orders? Do they want those public servants to believe they must follow any orders, no matter what?’ she wrote before bluntly stating, “Because that is not the law.”
You can read her entire post here.