Well ... well ... well. What have we here???
Well ... well ... well. What have we here???
The issue she raised was covered very well in the Investigating Officer’s Memorandum for Lt. Col. Lakin’s Article 32 Hearing.
Lt. Col. Driscoll wrote: “The Government does not charge that the President gave an order directly to LTC Lakin. For the President’s credentials to have any bearing on the charges against LTC Lakin, the Defense proposition must be that military orders issued by superiors to juniors are all ‘invalidated’ during the period the President improperly holds office. This proposition fails to account for the law of lawfulness of orders, which in essence requires that a facially proper order be obeyed so long as it does not require the commission of a criminal act. See, e.g., United States v. New, 55 MJ. 95, 107 -108 (2001) (medic who doubted lawfulness of order to deploy with United Nations uniform accoutrements unable to overcome presumption of lawfulness of superior’s orders to so deploy). Moreover, the Defense proposition fails to account for the de facto officer doctrine, a military variant of apparent authority. The Defense offers no legal support whatever for its position, which I find to be far from ‘axiomatic.’ As far as I have found, the position has no basis in law.”