Martial law, revoked
For six tense hours, South Korea experienced a self-coup brought about by an unpopular president Tuesday in Seoul. Police officers blockaded the National Assembly, and helicopters tried to prevent lawmakers from overturning President Yoon Suk Yeol’s surprise declaration of martial law.
But in the end, citizens joined lawmakers to protest the draconian measures and overturn Yoon’s announcement of martial law in a unanimous vote that included members of Yoon’s own party.
Now what? Yoon is facing an impeachment motion, which could occur as early as Friday. “By law, an impeachment motion must be put to a vote between 24 and 72 hours after the motion is reported to a plenary session,” South Korea’s Yonhap reports. In terms of power dynamics, “The main opposition Democratic Party, along with its allies, has at least 191 seats under its control,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “That means a handful of lawmakers from Yoon’s ruling People Power Party will need to be persuaded to break ranks.”
Embarrassment, confusion. As the Guardian reported Tuesday, “For the older generation who fought on the streets against military dictatorships, martial law equals dictatorship, not 21st century Korea. The younger generation is embarrassed that he has ruined their country’s reputation. People are baffled.”
Historian reax: “For the rest of the world, though, South Koreans’ immediate and aggressive response to a man trying to take away their democratic rights is an inspiration,” Heather Cox Richardson wrote Tuesday evening. “Among other things, it illustrates that for all the claims that autocracy can react to events more quickly than democracy can, in fact autocrats are brittle. It is democracy that is determined and resilient.”
Welcome to this Wednesday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. Share your newsletter tips, reading recommendations, or feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1918, Woodrow Wilson became the first U.S. president to travel to Europe while in office when he began the nine-day journey aboard the USS George Washington for World War I peace talks in Versailles.
Trump 2.0
New: The president-elect said he will nominate Daniel Driscoll to serve as Army secretary. Driscoll is a Ranger-qualified Iraq War veteran (with the 10th Mountain Division) who later graduated from law school at Yale.
While at Yale, Driscoll received a grant to visit to U.S. military detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as an observer. He later interned at the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs before working at law firms in New York, London, and Charlotte.
On Wednesday, Trump praised Driscoll as “a former Soldier, Investor, and Political Advisor” who “brings a powerful combination of experiences to serve as a disruptor and change agent.” Read more, here.
Developing: Could Trump replace his current SecDef pick with Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis? It’s under consideration, say the Washington Post, the Associated Press and others.
DeSantis served for five years on active duty and was a former Navy JAG officer with deployments to Iraq and Cuba. As he said in August of last year, “I learned in the military, I was assigned with U.S. Navy SEALs in Iraq, that you focus on the mission above all else, you can’t get distracted. So Republicans, we’ve got to look forward and we’ve got to make sure that we’re bringing the message that can win in November of 2024.”
Another reason Trump may be eyeing DeSantis: The Florida governor is responsible for flying about 50 primarily Venezuelan asylum seekers from San Antonio, Texas, to the largely Democratic community of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts back in September 2022. Those asylum seekers were later processed at a military base on nearby Cape Cod, where they were supported with lodging and dining facilities by the Massachusetts National Guard.
But DeSantis used the episode to falsely claim Democrats ordered the U.S. military to “deport” the asylum seekers. Conservatives have resurrected those false allegations in the lead-up to Trump’s inauguration, writing on social media that Democrats “Called in the National Guard to deport 50 illegals out of Martha’s Vineyard to a military base within 48 hours of their arrival.”
While the claim is not true, it is likely that we will hear it again; Trump is expected to pursue his campaign promise of deporting potentially millions of people from the country using the U.S. military, if necessary.
By the way: Trump’s first pick to lead the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, is refusing to step down as scrutiny on Capitol Hill intensifies following reports of his alleged misdeeds over the past decade, including several bouts of drunkenness described in a profile published Sunday in The New Yorker. “I’m doing this for the warfighters, not the warmongers,” Hegseth wrote Wednesday on Elon Musk’s website X.
“The Left is afraid of disrupters and change agents,” he said. “They are afraid of @realDonaldTrump—and me. So they smear w/ fake, anonymous sources & BS stories. They don’t want truth. Our warriors never back down, & neither will I.” The Hill has more on the growing news reports complicating Hegseth’s nomination.
ICYMI: Trump tapped Kash Patel to replace FBI Director Christopher Wray. CNN calls it “an extraordinary move that would put a self-described enemy of the so-called deep state as the head of the nation’s top law enforcement agency — a role that would give Patel power to carry out Trump’s threats to go after his political opponents.”
Bio: A former junior prosecutor at the Justice Department, Patel served as chief of staff to Christopher Miller, Trump’s final acting defense secretary. He also worked to discredit investigations into the ties between Trumpworld and Russia, efforts that the president-elect cited in his Saturday announcement.
As FBI chief, Patel would oversee counterintelligence operations on U.S. soil. His qualifications for that, according to his official DOD bio, include service as principal deputy to the acting Director of National Intelligence and as senior counsel for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
This just in: Iranian hackers recently obtained some of Patel’s communications, a source tells CNN.
Update: After a delay, Trump opts for conventional FBI screenings. President-elect Trump has reached an agreement with the Biden administration’s Justice Department that will allow his transition team to submit names for background checks and security clearances, Government Executive’s Eric Katz reported Tuesday.
The screenings, typically conducted by the FBI, are normally a routine part of the transition process, but Trump had dragged his feet in signing a memorandum of understanding. His team had floated the possibility of sidestepping the FBI background checks altogether, suggesting it would instead use private-sector investigators, but ultimately decided to go the more conventional route.
Why bring it up: Some lawmakers and observers had raised concerns that Trump would put government information at risk and generate other security concerns if he did not put his landing team members and nominees through the formal screening process, Katz writes.
Next up (maybe): Trump’s nominees are also required to engage with the Office of Government Ethics to resolve any conflicts of interest. His team has not yet indicated if it will complete those steps. Read more, here.
Trump’s team of advisors have (the contours of) a plan for Ukraine’s future, Reuters reported Wednesday. However, Ukraine’s leaders might not like it very much since the plan involves territorial concessions to Russia and removing possible NATO membership from any negotiations with Kyiv’s leaders.
Looming over all of this: “Trump repeatedly pledged during his election campaign to end the nearly three-year-old conflict within 24 hours of his Jan. 20 inauguration, if not before then, but has yet to say how,” Reuters writes.
Other ideas include trying to implement a “demilitarized zone” inside occupied Ukraine, according to remarks from Vice President-elect JD Vance in September. Another person close to Trump, his former Ambassador to Germany Richard Grennell suggested “autonomous zones” could be created inside occupied eastern Ukraine in order to appease Vladimir Putin of Russia. “Grenell was one of the few people at a September meeting in New York between Trump and Zelenskiy,” Reuters reports.
Said one former U.S. intelligence officer: “I don’t think anybody has any realistic plan for ending this.” Read more, here.
Etc.
Eighteen ways Palantir wants the Pentagon to change. CTO Shyam Sankar calls the Defense Department a sclerotic monopsony whose communist approach to acquisition has put the United States in danger. His prescription? A “painful” but “necessary” reformation based on competition and software. Read his “18 Theses,” and a Q&A with Defense One’s Lauren C. Williams.
Further reading: “Lockheed braces for new administration as Musk targets F-35,” Defense One’s Audrey Decker reported Tuesday.
Lastly today: Gaming out a MAGA military. What should be made of Trump’s avowed longing for senior military officers who will do his bidding without question? To answer that, writes Thomas Crosbie of the Royal Danish Defence College, “we must contemplate a scenario rarely considered by civil-military theorists, let alone military officers themselves: a U.S. president who gives orders that are not obviously illegal yet which undermine democratic norms.” Crosbie argues that game theory illuminates what might come next. Read that, here.
