Ralph Norman Accused of Sedition Over Trump 'Marshall Law' Text

Republican Congressman Ralph Norman has been accused of "sedition" after it emerged he called for President Donald Trump to impose "Marshall Law" (martial law) to remain in office, just three days before Joe Biden's inauguration.

Norman made the suggestion in a text to Mark Meadows, then Trump's White House chief of staff, which was included in a bundle of 2,319 text messages turned over to the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol Building.

In the January 17, 2021 message, published by media company Talking Points Memo, Norman wrote: "Mark, in seeing what's happening so quickly, and reading about the Dominion law suits attempting to stop any meaningful investigation we are at a point of no return in saving our Republic!!

"Our LAST HOPE is invoking Marshall Law!! PLEASE URGE TO PRESIDENT TO DO SO."

Norman appears to have misspelled martial law, the process by which power is transferred from civilian authorities to the military in an emergency.

Martial law has been imposed several times in U.S. history—generally locally—in response to a grave threat or natural disasters. For example, the law has invoked following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the 1920 Lexington riots, and the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Its legal basis is contested, with the New York University School of Law's Brennan Center for Justice noting the Supreme Court "has never clearly indicated whether the president could unilaterally declare martial law or if Congress would first need to authorize it."

The "Dominion law suits" in Norman's text refer to accusations by GOP lawmakers and right-wing media outlets that election machines produced by Dominion Voting Systems were rigged. The company is currently suing Fox Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, for $1.6 billion and has accused the news organization of amplifying baseless accusations of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

After Norman's text to Meadows was revealed, Tom Nichols, a staff writer at The Atlantic with 649,000 Twitter followers, tweeted: "Do not shrug this off.

"A member of the Congress of the United States wanted the outgoing president to invoke martial law, and use the arms of the United States military to prevent the new president from taking office. Sedition."

MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan added: "I know this isn't as important as the much bigger story here, a sitting GOP member of Congress urging the Trump White House to invoke martial law to prevent Biden from entering office, but it does jump out to me that the GOP member couldn't even spell martial law."

In a statement sent to Newsweek, Norman said: "Obviously, Martial Law was never warranted. That text message came from a source of frustration, on the heels of countless unanswered questions about the integrity of the 2020 election, without any way to slow down and examine those issues prior to the inauguration of the newly elected president."

On January 6, 2021, the U.S. Capitol was stormed by hundreds of Trump supporters, some armed, in a bid to stop the 2020 presidential election result from being certified.

In the ensuing violence, one Trump supporter, 35-year-old Ashli Babbitt, was shot dead by police whilst dozens of officers were injured.

On Saturday, GOP Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene triggered outrage after telling New York Republicans that Trump supporters would have "won," had the unrest been organized by herself and former Trump advisor Steve Bannon.

She said: "I want to tell you something: if Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, we would've been armed."

Mark Meadows has been contacted for comment.

Update 12/14/22, 2:41 a.m. ET: This article was updated with a statement from Ralph Norman.