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“I’d ask you to confirm a simple statement: the Department of
Defense will not send Federal troops to the polls or to seize
election materials of any kind,” Slotkin wrote to Hegseth and to
Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in
letters Tuesday.
The Pentagon said in an email that it will respond directly to
Slotkin, as it does with all congressional correspondence. The
Joint Chiefs did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.
Slotkin told The Associated Press that Trump has been laying the
groundwork to claim the midterms were stolen. She noted that
Trump contemplated using the military to seize voting machines
after his loss in 2020 and has deployed the National Guard to
cities against the wishes of Democratic leaders. He also
deployed active duty Marines to Los Angeles during his
immigration crackdown in 2025.
“He’s very clearly laying the breadcrumbs to be able to say the
day after the election that he didn’t really lose the House or
he didn’t really lose the Senate,” Slotkin said.
Slotkin asked Hegseth during an April congressional hearing if
he would follow orders to seize ballots. Hegseth called the
question a “gotcha hypothetical,” but said, “I’ve never been
ordered to do anything illegal, and I won’t.”
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles denied in a Vanity Fair
interview last year that Trump would use the military to
suppress voting in the midterms.
“I say it is categorically false, will not happen. It’s just
wrongheaded,” she said.
Federal law prohibits the deployment of armed federal forces to
election locations unless “necessary to repel armed enemies of
the United States.” If any element of the military were to get
involved, it would likely be the National Guard under state
control.
In 2020, Gen. Mark Milley, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, responded to a similar letter from Slotkin, then a
congresswoman.
“I believe deeply in the principle of an apolitical U.S.
military,” Milley wrote. “In the event of a dispute over some
aspect of the elections, by law U.S. courts and the U.S.
Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S.
military."
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