Skip to Main ContentTrump Seems Primed to Use Insurrection Act, Professor Emeritus WarnsBill Banks, professor of law emeritus and the founding director of the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism, told HuffPost Thursday that Trump’s threat to invoke the Insurrection Act appears far from being idle.“He was pushed back by the Supreme Court a couple weeks ago in his effort to federalize the National Guard [in Chicago],” Banks said. “And then he decided to withdraw [the troops], which was a pretty significant change in administration policy.”Now, Banks said, Trump seems to be primed to use the violence erupting in Minneapolis as a pretext to invoke the act.“I think this is the other shoe kind of waiting to drop… Here we go,” he said.So what happens if Trump does invoke it?“The basic story about the Insurrection Act is that it confers tremendous discretion on the president because it is written so broadly,” he said. “It requires input from no other government. Congress isn’t involved at all because they’ve given his authority by statute. He doesn’t need the permission of the governor. He doesn’t need to ask anybody to play nice. He can just go."See All UpdatesClose