Trump’s transition team is compiling a list of current and former U.S. military officers for possible courts-martial

The Trump transition team is compiling a list of senior current and former U.S. military officers directly involved in the withdrawal from Afghanistan and investigating whether they could be court-martialed for their involvement, according to a U.S. official and a person familiar with the matter. the plan. .

Officials working on the transition are considering establishing a committee to investigate the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, including gathering information on who was directly involved in decision-making for the military, how it was carried out and whether military leaders in could face charges as serious as treason, said the US official and person with knowledge of the plan.

“They are taking it very seriously,” said the person with knowledge of the plan.

Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Matt Flynn, a former deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics and Global Threats, is helping lead the charge, the sources said. It is framed as an assessment of how the US first became involved in the war in Afghanistan and how the US ultimately withdrew.

“Matt Flynn has nothing to do with Trump’s transition team, let alone lead the review of military justice issues,” said Mark S. Zaid, Flynn’s attorney. In a statement, Zaid said that “no one sought Mr. Flynn’s opinion on this hypothetical legal scenario.”

NBC News has contacted multiple Trump transition team officials about this story.

“The sources apparently pushing this story appear to be the typical self-serving Washington DC insiders looking to gain better positioning for their own administrative jobs,” said a person with knowledge of the campaign.

President-elect Donald Trump has condemned the withdrawal as a ‘humiliation’ and ‘the most embarrassing day in the history of our country’.

However, it is not clear what would legally justify the charges of “treason” as the military officers were following President Joe Biden’s orders to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan.

An independent assessment from 2022 by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction blamed both the Trump and Biden administrations for the chaotic 2021 US withdrawal.

Trump reached one for the first time agreement with the Taliban in 2020 to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, approximately 13,000 troops, and release 5,000 Taliban fighters from prison. The Biden administration subsequently completed the withdrawal and seriously overestimated the ability of Afghan government forces to fight the Taliban on their own.

Trump’s choice for Secretary of Defense Fox News personality Pete Hegsethhas criticized the withdrawal, saying the US lost the war and wasted billions of dollars.

In his book “The War on Warriors,” Hegseth wrote, “The next President of the United States must radically overhaul the Pentagon’s senior leadership to prepare us to defend our nation and defeat our enemies. A lot of people need to be fired. The debacle in Afghanistan is of course the most poignant example of this.”

Hegseth called the withdrawal a “humiliating retreat” and said Pentagon leaders were not held responsible for the deadly attacks. attack on the Abbey GateThirteen American soldiers and approximately 170 Afghan civilians were killed. They also were not held responsible for a subsequent U.S. airstrike in Kabul that officials believed would kill the Islamic State leader behind the suicide bombing but instead killed 10 innocent Afghans, including seven children, he wrote.

“These generals lied. They did a bad job. They violated their oath. They failed. They have disgraced our troops and our nation. They had people killed unnecessarily,” he wrote. “And to this point, they keep their jobs. Worse, they continue to actively erode our military and its values ​​– by capitulating to civilians with radical agendas. They are a disgrace, with the stars still on their shoulders.”

The transition team is exploring the possibility of recalling several commanders to active duty due to possible charges, the U.S. official said.

It is not clear that the Trump administration would pursue treason charges, and could instead focus on lesser charges that highlight the officer’s involvement. “They want to set an example,” said the person with knowledge of the plan.

Howard Lutnick, one of the two advisers, spoke to NBC News days before the election leading the transitionsaid Trump learned after his first administration that he had hired Democratic generals, and that he would not make that mistake again.

Former officials who worked in Trump’s first administration have said they advised Trump against policies they believed would weaken U.S. national security, such as withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria. And they advised against actions they believed would violate the Constitution or could inflame tensions at home, such as deploying active-duty U.S. troops to suppress protests after the 2020 police killing of George Floyd.