Can State Governors Declare War? Mike Flynn Predicts 'Probably' Will Happen

Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn said during a recent event that state governors can declare war and that "we're going to probably see that."

Flynn made the remarks at an event for Mark Finchem, a QAnon-linked lawmaker and 2020 election denier, who is the Republican candidate for Arizona secretary of state.

Flynn's speech surfaced in a brief video that was circulating on Twitter on Thursday, and has been viewed nearly 500,000 times.

Former federal prosecutor Ron Filipkowski tweeted out the clip, writing: "At a campaign event for AZ Sect of State candidate Mark Finchem, Michael Flynn says 90% of Fed agencies should be disbanded."

In the video, Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, says "90 percent of the departments of whatever, just lock them up."

"States' rights. Did you know that a governor can declare war? A governor can declare war. And we're going to probably see that," Flynn added.

Flynn's claims about a governor's powers are false, however.

"A governor cannot declare war," Frances Hill, a professor of law and dean's distinguished scholar for the profession at the University of Miami, said in an interview with Newsweek on Thursday, noting that the "sovereign is the federal government."

"And even though various and sundry interpreters of the Constitution have, from time to time, tried to argue that the states are sovereign as well...it is a different kind of sovereignty. They have sovereignty over certain elements of action within their own state—declaring war on anybody in their own state not being among those powers, I suppose I should add," Hill said.

Congress holds the power to declare war in the U.S.

Hill also noted that governors cannot mobilize the National Guard to go to war. "If the National Guard is to be used in a combat situation, that has to be done by the federal government," Hill said.

"I just think that it's very dangerous for people to go out...people who still have a voice and who will be covered to some extent, and make claims like this that are simply not true," the professor added.

Newsweek has attempted to reach Flynn for comment.

In January, Flynn falsely claimed that COVID-19 was invented by a globalist cabal to help Democrats win the 2020 election.

"They see themselves as 'this is how we can rule the world, this is how we can control societies, this is how we can control humanity,'" Flynn said in an interview with conspiracy theorist and Infowars host Alex Jones.

"So, let's introduce something called COVID, and they did it, and they did it for a couple of reasons. One of the big reasons was to steal an election," he added.