“He had the authority to order him to report to his office.”
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And an order from a commanding officer with the authority to give it, which does not require the commission of a manifest crime, is by definition a lawful order. Lakin knowingly refused to obey a lawful order.
The court-martial existed for the sole purpose of determining whether Lakin had committed crimes, and it seems to me unquestionable that he did.
Lakin has a right to a fair hearing on whether he committed the crimes he was accused of. He was accused of several things, including the failure to obey the LAWFUL order to show up for deployment to Afghanistan.
Lind’s job was to determine whether the orders he refused to obey were lawful orders. Deployment to combat in a foreign country is only lawful if it meets the conditions set forth in Congress’ authorization to use force in foreign countries. The one condition they gave was that it had to be the decision of THE PRESIDENT.
Lind could claim that Lakin had to obey the order even if it wasn’t lawful, on the grounds of the de facto officer doctrine. But her first order of business was to take what was set before her - the claim that he had failed to obey 2 LAWFUL orders. I have agreed that the one (to show up at hsi office) was lawful. The other (to show up for deployment to Afghanistan) wasn’t, and Lind did not distinguish between the two, even though the terms of the Authorization to Use Force are explicit in their demand that it be approved by the President. The lawfulness explicitly depends on the approval of the President, and the military’s regulations say that all orders down the chain of command must be in compliance with the US Constitution and the legal authorizations. Lind totally blew that off. Deliberately.