Fake News: Trump NOT Planning Mass Arrests, Military Tribunals for Deep State Traitors

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: Trump NOT Planning Mass Arrests, Military Tribunals for Deep State Traitors

Is an "Emergency report" correctly predicting President Trump is planning mass arrest and military tribunals for "deep state traitors" based on some cited documents? No, that's not true: the story is at least half a year old by now so it is not really an emergency anymore but it still keeps getting copy-pasted to new websites claiming things are about to happen even though we now know the predictions were unfounded and based on very selective and wrong reading of some old and not so old Executive Orders.

The latest version of the story appeared in an article published on May 20, 2019 by DeselCo titled "EMERGENCY REPORT: Trump Planning Mass Arrests, Military Tribunals for Deep State Traitors" (archived here) which opened:

As the documents cited here clearly show, President Trump is planning to carry out mass arrests of deep state traitors, including Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, James Comey and even Barack Obama.

This is fully covered, with accompanying documentation from the U.S. Federal Register, in the links and video below. (This author is fully supportive of this effort to save America and arrest the traitors.)

The confirmation of Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court is the key to getting this done in a timely manner, which explains why the deranged Left is going to such outrageous extremes to fabricate false allegations against Kavanaugh and stage coordinated, well-funded protests to try to block the U.S. Senate from confirming him.

Once Kavanaugh is on the court, it will add the necessary support for constitutional "emergency powers" that concentrate power in the executive branch of government (currently headed by President Trump) during times of war and national emergencies.

Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:

EMERGENCY REPORT: Trump Planning Mass Arrests, Military Tribunals for Deep State Traitors

Loading... As the documents cited here clearly show, President Trump is planning to carry out mass arrests of deep state traitors, including Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, James Comey and even Barack Obama. This is fully covered, with accompanying documentation from the U.S. Federal Register, in the links and video below. (This author is fully supportive ...

DeselCo is claiming all of this will happen "once Kavanaugh is on the court". But that happened over seven months ago, on October 6, 2018 and no arrests have been made since. The fact that the article on DeselCo that was published on May 20, 2019 still speaks about the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh as a future event is the first clue there is something wrong with this story.

In fact it was copied from NaturalNews where it was first published on September 23, 2018 (archived here):

EMERGENCY REPORT: Signed Executive Orders reveal Trump is planning mass arrests, military tribunals for deep state traitors like Comey, Clinton and Obama - UPDATE

THIS IS A NATIONAL EMERGENCY SPECIAL REPORT As the documents cited here clearly show, President Trump is planning to carry out mass arrests of deep state traitors, including Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, James Comey and even Barack Obama. This is fully covered, with accompanying documentation from

It got promptly republished by NewsWars on the same day (archived here):

EMERGENCY REPORT: Trump Planning Mass Arrests, Military Tribunals for Deep State Traitors

As the documents cited here clearly show, President Trump is planning to carry out mass arrests of deep state traitors, including Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, James Comey and even Barack Obama. This is fully covered, with accompanying documentation from the U.S. Federal Register, in the links and video below.

NewsWars is run by the same people as InfoWars: the terms of service and contact information links at the bottom of the site both point to InfoWars. So it was no surprise the story also was published by InfoWars on September 24, 2018 (archived here):

EMERGENCY REPORT: Trump Planning Mass Arrests, Military Tribunals for Deep State Traitors

As the documents cited here clearly show, President Trump is planning to carry out mass arrests of deep state traitors, including Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, James Comey and even Barack Obama. This is fully covered, with accompanying documentation from the U.S. Federal Register, in the links and video below.

Since then the story has been copy-pasted countless times on various other sites. It appears the DeselCo version was copied from NewsWars since they even kept the advertising links intact as you can see in these screenshots:

NewsWars:

newswarsad.jpg

DeselCo:

deselcoad.jpg

The whole premise of the story rests on several documents that are offered up as proof of Trump's plans. But there are serious issues with the way these documents are described.

Take for example Document #1: Executive Order 13818, signed December 20, 2017. "Blocking the Property of Persons Involved in Serious Human Rights Abuse or Corruption"

The article has this to say about it:

This document specifically describes the crimes of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, James Comey and Robert Mueller under the "corruption" section, alluding to the Uranium One scandal and Obama's multi-billion dollar money laundering operation that handed nuclear weapons capabilities to Iran. It says that the executive order targets, "any foreign person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Attorney General... to be a current or former government official, or a person acting for or on behalf of such an official, who is responsible for or complicit in, or has directly or indirectly engaged in... corruption, including the misappropriation of state assets, the expropriation of private assets for personal gain, corruption related to government contracts or the extraction of natural resources, or bribery..."

(our highlights)

But in the text of the Executive Order there is no specific description of crimes by any of the named people, just a general listing of what is deemed to be corruption ("misappropriation of state assets, the expropriation of private assets for personal gain, corruption related to government contracts or the extraction of natural resources, or bribery"). A specific description would include which specific assets, contracts, resources or bribes this was about. The order also mentions that it is only about "foreign persons" so Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, James Comey and Robert Mueller do not fall under its scope.

Then there is Document #2: Executive Order 13618, signed July 6, 2012 by President Obama. "Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions". Here's what the article says about it:

This executive order grants the President absolute control over all U.S. media, including internet tech giants (social media), news networks and news websites. It specifically names:

...communications that support Continuity of Government; Federal, State, local, territorial, and tribal emergency preparedness and response communications; non-military executive branch communications systems; critical infrastructure protection networks; and non-military communications networks, particularly with respect to prioritization and restoration...

The Executive Order does no such thing. It just contains directions and appointments for how to manage communications related to national security and emergency preparedness. It doesn't even mention the words "media", "internet" or "website". The section quoted in the article is quoted incomplete, here is the full sentence:

The Secretary of Homeland Security shall: (a) oversee the development, testing, implementation, and sustainment of NS/EP communications, including: communications that support Continuity of Government; Federal, State, local, territorial, and tribal emergency preparedness and response communications; non-military executive branch communications systems; critical infrastructure protection networks; and non-military communications networks, particularly with respect to prioritization and restoration;

(missing part highlighted)

In other words, it says that the Secretary of Homeland Security has to make sure communications for national security and emergency preparedness are developed, tested, implemented and maintained. It doesn't say anything about the President taking absolute control over all U.S. media.

Finally there is Document #3: Executive Order 13825, signed March 1, 2018. "2018 Amendments to the Manual for Courts-Martial, United States", which is described in the story as:

Although much more difficult to read, this document essentially establishes the preservation of the government's right to prosecute crimes of treason and deep state collusion against America, all of which may be prosecuted via military tribunals under existing U.S. law.

This would allow deep state traitors to be arrested by military police and subjected to military trials run by the Pentagon, completely bypassing the corrupt court system which has been deliberately stacked with complicit deep state traitors and "resistance" judges.

There is only one problem with that reading. Section 2. of the order specifically says:

Sec. 2. The amendments in Annex 1 shall take effect on the date of this order, subject to the following:
(a) Nothing in Annex 1 shall be construed to make punishable any act done or omitted prior to the date of this order that was not punishable when done or omitted.

(b) Nothing in Annex 1 shall be construed to invalidate the prosecution of any offense committed before the date of this order. The maximum punishment for an offense committed before the date of this order shall not exceed the maximum punishment in effect at the time of the commission of such offense.

The order took effect on March 1, 2018. So it makes no difference to any acts or offenses dating from before that. In fact the entire point of Executive Order 13825 is to provide a cutover date between the old Uniform Code of Military Justice and a newer, updated version that has been in the works for some time and which brings several procedural changes:

2019 brings changes to military justice system

FORT MEADE, Md. -- A host of changes to the Uniform Code of Military Justice became effective Jan. 1, modernizing definitions for many offenses, adjusting maximum penalties, standardizing court-martial panels, creating new computer-crime laws, and much more. The changes strike a balance between protecting the rights of the accused and empowering commanders to effect good order and discipline, said Col.

It makes no difference for the prosecution of crimes etc. committed before that date.

Based on bad and erroneous interpretation of these three documents the article then veers completely into fantasy land where President Trump can declare martial law, arrest people and have them tried by military tribunals while also taking control of the press.

Since that part was only a prediction (which didn't turn out to be true as we now know) it couldn't really be fact checked at the time. But the interpretation of the documents offered up as proof to base the prediction on was clearly wrong and still is today.

So don't fall for (often foreign) websites trying to scare up traffic with a sensationalized article that is months old in order to make some money from people who click their ads and don't help these websites by sharing such stories on social media.

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  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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