Air Force General: Armed troops shouldn’t be ‘anywhere near’ polling sites

By Brentin Mock

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - JUNE 13: California National Guard members stand guard at the Wilshire Federal Building on June 13, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. A federal appeals court ruled on June 12 that the Trump administration can maintain control of the California National Guard, overturning a lower court ruling that U.S. President Donald Trump's deployment of the troops to protest-laden Los Angeles without Governor Gavin Newsom's consent was unlawful. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

A top U.S. general said Thursday that armed troops shouldn’t be “anywhere near” polling sites during elections while testifying at a Senate Armed Services Committee panel.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) grilled U.S. Air Force General Gregory M. Guillot about President Donald Trump’s threats to police elections with military or law enforcement personnel, and about what the general would do if ordered to send troops to man polls during elections. A former Army pilot and National Guard member herself, Duckworth sought assurance from Guillot that voters wouldn’t face intimidation from armed troops while accessing their ballot, which is illegal, as is sending soldiers to polling places, except in the event of an armed rebellion.

Asked what guardrails he would put in place if Trump ordered him to deploy troops for the midterms, Guillot initially was noncommittal.   

“If given the order, I would look at it very closely,” said Guillot, who oversees homeland defense for the Air Force, “and if it did not meet what I felt were the legal hurdles, I would consult with my [military attorney] and then I would bring up that concern with the Secretary and the chairman to ensure that I could stay on the right side of the law.”

But, asked if troops would show up armed if ordered to provide logistical support for federal agents during elections, Guillot responded, “No, I would not see any reason to use armed and uniformed members around a polling place for logistics.”

“I don’t think they should be anywhere near there,” he added, “where we would give the perception that we’re trying to operate illegally.”

Duckworth isn’t the only person seeking assurances in this regard. On March 10, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) sued the Department of Justice (DOJ) over its failure to produce records “concerning potential deployment of federal agents and troops to polling places, drop boxes, and election offices,” from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

This came after Trump publicly threatened a federal takeover of certain states’ elections and expressed regret in a New York Times interview that he didn’t send the National Guard in to seize ballot boxes when he was president in 2020. Weeks after that interview, the FBI raided Fulton County, Georgia’s elections office, seizing ballots and other materials from the 2020 election.

Trump has already deployed military troops to Chicago, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Minneapolis and several other cities to purportedly assist in immigration crackdowns, fight crime, pick up trash and, in some cases, just sit around aimlessly. It has raised fears that he will create spurious emergency circumstances to justify putting military boots on the ground during midterms.

“This administration is comfortable thrusting our service members into legally ambiguous situations and leaving them to hang out to dry without legal protection,” said Duckworth at the hearing. “Sending troops to the election is just another way that this administration is shifting the burden of legal liability onto service members. This is my concern, because the statutes specify that any member of the armed forces who deploys to polling places or intimidates voters could be imprisoned or disqualified from office.”