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      South Korea’s Defense Minister Steps Down Over Martial Law Decree

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      South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, announced on Thursday that he had accepted the resignation of his defense minister, the first member of Mr. Yoon’s cabinet to lose his job since the president’s short-lived declaration of martial law on Tuesday night stunned the country.The defense minister, Kim Yong-hyun, had tendered his resignation on Wednesday, saying that he considered himself responsible for the crisis that the martial law decree had created for Mr. Yoon’s government. He did not directly address allegations among opposition lawmakers and local media that he had suggested the idea to Mr. Yoon.A statement from the presidential office said that Mr. Kim would be replaced by Choi Byung Hyuk, a retired army general who has been serving as South Korea’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia.Mr. Yoon withdrew the martial law declaration early Wednesday morning, after the National Assembly voted unanimously against it and protesters gathered to denounce the move. Opposition lawmakers later introduced a motion to impeach Mr. Yoon, which could be voted on as soon as Friday.If two-thirds of the 300 lawmakers in the National Assembly vote for the motion, Mr. Yoon will be impeached and suspended from office until the country’s Constitutional Court makes a final ruling on whether to reinstate or remove him. All 192 opposition lawmakers support impeachment, but they need at least eight votes from members of Mr. Yoon’s People Power Party to impeach him.The head of that party, Han Dong-hoon, said on Thursday that he would try to persuade its lawmakers to vote against impeachment, to prevent what he called national “confusion.”But at the same time, Mr. Han tried to distance the party from Mr. Yoon, calling his martial law decree “unconstitutional” and demanding that he give up his party membership. Mr. Han also said that military leaders who were involved in imposing martial law must be removed from their posts. He did not identify any commanders by name.“We must show to the military that if they get involved in an unconstitutional and illegal martial law, they will be punished immediately,” Mr. Han said.Gen. Park An-su, the army chief of staff, led the martial law command during the several hours before the decree was rescinded. Hundreds of troops were sent into the National Assembly in what opposition lawmakers called an “illegal” and “unconstitutional” attempt to stop them from voting against the decree. Staff members barricaded hallways with furniture and used fire extinguishers against troops to keep them from entering the voting chamber.Mr. Kim, the outgoing defense minister, said the troops had been following his orders when they entered the National Assembly. Mr. Yoon has insisted that martial law was needed to protect the country from disruptive political opposition that had paralyzed his administration.This is a developing story. More

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      South Korea Stock Markets Wobble After Martial Law Turmoil

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      South Korean stocks and the country’s currency fell on Wednesday morning after a tense night during which President Yoon Suk Yeol declared and then lifted a martial-law declaration.The benchmark Kospi index fell about 2 percent in early trading in Seoul. Shares of some of South Korea’s biggest companies were down, with Samsung Electronics losing more than 1 percent and LG Energy Solution and Hyundai Motor shedding more than 2 percent.After a steep drop overnight, the South Korean won found its footing somewhat. On Wednesday morning it was trading down by about 1 percent against the dollar since the initial declaration of martial law late Tuesday night.Just before midnight on Tuesday and early in the morning on Wednesday, South Korea’s finance minister, Choi Sang-mok, convened meetings in Seoul with officials from the central bank and key financial regulators. They pledged to meet daily to “establish a constant risk management system” and provide “unlimited liquidity support” until the stock, bond and currency markets stabilized.Mr. Choi said on Wednesday that the government would focus on shielding the economy, and that officials would “closely communicate” with the authorities of other countries with major economies. “In any given situation, the government will do its best to address economic concerns and to minimize disruptions in entrepreneurial and daily activities,” he said.The Bank of Korea’s monetary policy board said it would hold an emergency meeting on Wednesday. The central bank unexpectedly cut interest rates last week, citing “heightened uncertainties surrounding growth and inflation, driven by the new U.S. administration’s policies.”As opposition lawmakers demanded that President Yoon step down, analysts and investors were trying to gauge how long South Korea’s outbreak of political turmoil would persist.Market, consumer and business sentiment will likely “take a significant hit” for some time, as it did in the period around South Korea’s last presidential impeachment in 2017, said Min Joo Kang, a senior economist at ING.South Korea’s credit rating could also be affected, though that is uncertain at this stage, Ms. Kang said in a note.“South Korea’s democratic institutions and culture have withstood the stress test,” Krishna Guha, vice chairman of Evercore ISI, wrote in a note. He expected “minimal” disruption to business and supply chains, “but it is extraordinary and troubling that it happened at all,” he added.Elsewhere in the Asia Pacific region, markets fell slightly but remained relatively calm. Benchmark indexes in Japan, Australia and Hong Kong all fell by less than 1 percent on Wednesday morning.Minho Kim More

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      South Korean History Is Scarred by Martial Law

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      For many younger South Koreans, President Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived declaration of martial law late Tuesday night was their first exposure to a kind of turbulence that older generations remember all too well.Since South Korea was founded in 1948, a number of presidents have declared states of military emergency. The most recent — and the most notorious, perhaps — came after the 1979 assassination of President Park Chung-hee, a former general who had occasionally used martial law himself to crack down on political protests and opposition since seizing power in 1961.Soon after Mr. Park was killed, a general, Chun Doo-hwan, staged his own coup. In May 1980, he declared martial law, banning all political activities, closing schools and arresting dissidents.Protests erupted in the southwestern city of Gwangju, and Mr. Chun sent in armored vehicles and paratroopers, who crushed the uprising. Officials said at least 191 people were killed, including 26 soldiers and police officers, but families of slain demonstrators said the death toll was much higher.Mr. Chun, who remained in power until 1988, characterized the Gwangju protests as a revolt driven by North Korean operatives. But the uprising became a pivotal moment in South Korea’s transition to democracy, and many South Koreans support revising the Constitution to honor its importance to the country.In 1996, Mr. Chun and another former general, Roh Tae-woo — a childhood friend of Mr. Chun who backed his rule and was directly elected president in 1988 — were prosecuted for the 1979 coup and the deadly crackdown that followed.Roh Tae-woo, left, and Chun Doo-hwan on trial in 1996.Yonhap/EPA, via ShutterstockPresident Kim Young-sam, who served from 1993 to 1998, said at the time of the prosecutions that they marked a new era of constitutionalism for Korea. But Mr. Kim pardoned both men the next year, a move aimed at uniting the country. Shin Woo-jae, a spokesman for President Kim, said the pardons were granted “to promote national reconciliation and rally the nation’s energies to overcome the economic difficulties at this juncture when the nation conducted the cleanest and fairest presidential election in its history.” More

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      President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea Declares Martial Law, Then Backs Down

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      Soon after President Yoon Suk Yeol’s declaration on Tuesday, lawmakers voted to defy him, prompting the president to say he was lifting his order.President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea declared emergency martial law on Tuesday night, then reversed himself hours later as thousands of protesters flooded the streets, capping an extraordinary night of tumult in the deeply divided country.The threat of military rule had brought political chaos to one of America’s closest allies in Asia and carried echoes of South Korea’s postwar years of military rule and political violence.But Mr. Yoon’s gambit appeared to quickly backfire, leaving his political future uncertain and the opposition baying for his impeachment.His announcement imposing martial law, at 10:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday, had immediately raised questions over whether the president could commandeer such a highly developed industrialized democracy.Before dawn on Wednesday, those questions appeared to be answered.The National Assembly quickly passed a resolution demanding an end to martial law, and Mr. Yoon backed down, saying he would lift his emergency declaration just five and a half hours after he had issued it.Martial law was formally lifted at a Cabinet meeting early Wednesday.President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea declared emergency martial law on Tuesday evening.Ahn Young-Joon/Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Read President Yoon’s Speech Declaring Martial Law in South Korea

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      Honorable citizens, as President, I appeal to you with a feeling of spitting blood.Since the inauguration of our government, the National Assembly has initiated 22 impeachment motions against government officials, and since the inauguration of the 22nd National Assembly in June, it is pushing for the impeachment of 10 more. This is a situation that is not only unprecedented in any country in the world, but has never been seen since the founding of our country.It is paralyzing the judiciary by intimidating judges and impeaching a number of prosecutors, and it is paralyzing the executive branch by trying to impeach the Minister of the Interior, the Chairman of the Communications Commission, the Chair of the Board of Audit, and the Defense Minister.The handling of the national budget also undermined the essential functions of the state and turned Korea into a drug paradise and a public order panic by completely cutting all major budgets for cracking down on drug crimes and maintaining public security. The Democratic Party cut 4.1 trillion won from next year’s budget, including 1 trillion won for disaster preparedness reserves, 38.4 billion won for child care support allowances, and a project to develop a gas field in the city for youth jobs.They even put the brakes on funding to improve the treatment of military officers, including raising salaries and allowances for entry-level officers and increasing on-call duty fees.This budget outrage is nothing short of manipulating the national finances of the Republic of Korea. The legislative dictatorship of the Democratic Party, which uses even the budget as a means of political struggle, did not hesitate to impeach the budget. The government is paralyzed, and the people’s sighs are growing.This trampling of the constitutional order of the free Republic of Korea and the disruption of legitimate state institutions established by the constitution and laws is an obvious anti-state act that plots insurrection. The lives of the people are of no concern, and the government is in a state of paralysis due to impeachment, special investigation, and the defense of the opposition leader.Our National Assembly has become a den of criminals and is attempting to paralyze the nation’s judicial administration system through legislative dictatorship and overthrow the liberal democracy system. The National Assembly, which should be the foundation of liberal democracy, has become a monster that collapses the liberal democracy system. Now, Korea is in a precarious situation where it would not be surprising if it collapsed immediately.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Wartime Election in Ukraine? It’s a Political Hot Potato.

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      In normal circumstances, Ukraine’s president would face voters next spring. Analysts say a wartime election is unlikely, but the prospect is causing some anxiety in Kyiv.It might seem like a huge distraction at the height of a full-scale war, not to mention a logistical nightmare: holding a presidential election as Russian missiles fly into the Ukrainian capital and artillery assaults reduce whole towns to ruins.But President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has not ruled it out. His five-year term ends in several months, and if not for the war, he would be preparing to either step down or campaign for a second term.Analysts consider the possibility of wartime balloting a long shot, and under martial law, elections in Ukraine are suspended. Still, there is talk among Kyiv’s political class that Mr. Zelensky might seek a vote, with far-reaching implications for his government, the war and political opponents, who worry he will lock in a new term in an environment when competitive elections are all but impossible.The debate over an election comes against the backdrop of mounting pressure on Ukraine to show to Western donors Ukraine’s good governance credentials, which Mr. Zelensky has touted. Opponents say a one-sided wartime election could weaken that effort.A petition opposing such an election has drawn signatures from 114 prominent Ukrainian civil society activists.A new electoral mandate could strengthen Mr. Zelensky’s hand in any decision about whether to commit to an extended fight, or insulate him if eventual settlement talks with Russia dent his popularity and hurt his chances of re-election later.Mr. Zelensky has said he favors elections, but only if international monitors can certify them as free, fair and inclusive, and he has outlined multiple obstacles to holding a vote. Political opponents have been more categorical in rejecting elections, which before the Russian invasion were scheduled for March and April next year, saying the war was creating too much turmoil to properly conduct a vote.Serhiy Prytula, who runs a charity in support of the war effort, ranks high among the most respected leaders in the country.Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times“The first step is victory; the second step is everything else,” including a revival of domestic politics in Ukraine, said Serhiy Prytula, an opposition figure and the director of a charity assisting the military. Opinion surveys regularly rank him in the top three most respected leaders in the country, along with Mr. Zelensky and the commander of the military commander, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny.Mr. Prytula, a former comedic actor, had set up an exploratory committee to run for Parliament before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, following the path from show business to politics taken by Mr. Zelensky, who had played a president in a television series before winning the presidency in 2019. For now, Mr. Prytula has halted all political activity during the war. The Biden administration and European governments supporting Ukraine militarily have not weighed in publicly on an election. But the idea garnered wider attention when Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said the country should go ahead with a vote despite the war.“You must also do two things at the same time,” Mr. Graham said on a visit to Kyiv in August. “I want this country to have free and fair elections, even when it’s under attack.”To hold elections, Ukraine would have to lift, at least temporarily, martial law in the case of a vote for Parliament or amend the law in the case of a vote for president. In a photo provided by the Ukrainian government, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, center, attended a ceremony in July. He is seen as a prospective challenger to Mr. Zelensky in future elections.Agence France-Presse, via Ukrainian Presidential Press ServiceMr. Zelensky has cited as a major obstacle the need to ensure that Ukrainians living under Russian occupation can vote without retribution. “We are ready,” he told a conference in Kyiv last month. “It’s not a question of democracy. This is exclusively an issue of security.”The Ukrainian leader has said online voting might be a solution.Among the states of the former Soviet Union, Ukraine is the country with the largest population to have succeeded in transferring power democratically. Its criminal justice system has been riddled with corruption, and the privatization of state property has been mismanaged, but elections had been consistently deemed free and fair by international monitors. Ukrainians have elected six presidents since gaining independence in 1991.“Ukraine’s commitment to democracy is not in question, and being forced to postpone elections due to war doesn’t change this,” said Peter Erben, the Ukraine director of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, a pro-democracy group funded by Western governments. Ukrainian politics have revolved around parties formed by prominent personalities rather than policy positions. There is Fatherland, led by Yulia Tymoshenko, the most prominent woman in Ukrainian politics; the Punch, led by Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv and a former boxer; the Voice, led by Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, a rock star; and Mr. Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, named for a TV show.Senator Lindsey Graham visited Kyiv in May. He returned in August and spoke about potential elections.Sergei Supinsky/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMilitary veterans are widely expected to play an outsize role in Ukrainian politics when elections resume, as voters and as candidates who could challenge the current political class.Holding an election before the war ends could lock in seats for parties in Parliament now, including Mr. Zelensky’s, while soldiers are still serving in the military and unable to run for office.“A scheduled election isn’t necessary for our democracy,” said Olha Aivazovska, the director of OPORA, a Ukrainian civil society group that monitors elections. There is no means now for refugees, frontline soldiers and residents of occupied territory to vote, she said.An election in “the hot phase of the war” would almost certainly undermine, not reinforce, Mr. Zelensky’s legitimacy, she said.Even those who favor an election cite concerns about a potential consolidation of power. Oleg Soskin, an economist and adviser to a former Ukrainian president, has called for elections despite the war, warning that Mr. Zelensky could otherwise usurp authority under martial law. But that is an outlying view in Kyiv. The debate about a potential election represents some re-emergence of familiar political clashes in a Ukrainian government long marked by infighting and vendettas. Most of Mr. Zelensky’s political opponents have refrained from being overly critical of him during the war, but they say a vote now would be unfair.Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, center, and his brother Vladimir Klitschko, left, visiting a residential area after shelling in 2022.Roman Pilipey/EPA, via Shutterstock“I understand the government wants to maintain its position while ratings are high,” said Dmytro Razumkov, a former chairman of Parliament in the political opposition. Mr. Zelensky’s chances of victory, he said, “will almost certainly be lower after the end of the war.”An election now would only weaken Ukraine as politicians campaigned, competing with and criticizing one another, said Volodymyr Ariev, a member of Parliament from the opposition European Solidarity party. He has advocated for Mr. Zelensky to form a national unity government that would include members of the opposition.“It jeopardizes the unity of society,” he added.Public opinion surveys have consistently suggested that a prospective challenger to Mr. Zelensky in future elections could be the commander of his army, General Zaluzhny. As a serving military officer, he is barred from participating in an election during the war.Dmytro Razumkov, former chairman of Ukraine’s Parliament, in his office on Wednesday.Brendan Hoffman for The New York TimesMr. Zelensky still consistently leads in surveys of leaders whom Ukrainians trust. A recent poll by United Ukraine, a nonpartisan research group, showed 91 percent of Ukrainians trusted Mr. Zelensky, 87 percent trusted General Zaluzhny, and 81 percent trusted Mr. Prytula.Polls have also shown high support for Mr. Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv; Vitaly Kim, the head of the civil military administration in the southern region of Mykolaiv; and Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s national security council.Mr. Prytula’s charity has boosted his national stature during the war. It draws donations from millions of Ukrainians to provide drones, body armor, rifle scopes and other supplies to the army at a time when activities supporting the army are immensely popular domestically.Mr. Prytula said he was focused solely on keeping Ukrainians united behind the war effort. Holding an election now, he said, would be pointless because Mr. Zelensky would all but certainly win.“He is No. 1,” he said. “Our society supports him.”Maria Varenikova More

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      The Marcos Family Gets Star Treatment in a New Philippines Film

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      A big-budget production depicts the family as victims of a political vendetta, a popular narrative during the recent presidential election in the Philippines.MANILA — Even before its opening night last week, “Maid in Malacanang” was shaping up to be the most talked-about film of the year in the Philippines.The almost two-hour drama portrays the Marcos family’s last days in the presidential palace before being forced into exile by a pro-democracy revolt in 1986.“We did everything for this country after World War II, only to be destroyed by the people who yearn for power,” a sobbing Imelda R. Marcos tells her son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., in one scene. “Remember this, we will never be able to return after we leave. They will do everything so the Filipino people will hate us.”A teary-eyed Mr. Marcos, played by the young actor Diego Loyzaga, consoles his mother as he replies, “I promise, I don’t know how or when, but we will return.”The Marcoses returned to the Philippines in the 1990s, but the family’s biggest comeback happened in May, when Mr. Marcos, the son and namesake of the former dictator, was elected president in the most consequential race in three decades. The release of “Maid in Malacanang,” a big-budget production starring two famous actors, is seen as a sort of victory lap for the new president and his family.Ruffa Gutierrez, who plays former first lady Imelda R. Marcos, shooting a scene on the set of the movie “Maid in Malacanang.”Viva Films“This is a work of truth,” Imee Marcos said at the movie’s premiere. One of Mr. Marcos’s sisters, she was the movie’s creative producer and executive producer. “We waited 36 years for this story to come out.”Despite the corruption and tax evasion cases against the family, many Filipinos consider the Marcoses something like royalty, an idea that the film plays on while furthering the myth that they were victims of a political vendetta.More than 30 million people voted for Mr. Marcos in May, allowing him to clinch the presidency with the largest vote margin in more than 30 years. Nearly half the country believes the family was unjustly forced to flee.But many of Mr. Marcos’s detractors say he won the election because of a yearslong campaign to rewrite Marcos family history and the legacy of the father’s brutal dictatorship. “Maid in Malacanang,” they say, is just the latest attempt to rewrite the narrative.The movie is told through the eyes of three maids who worked for the Marcoses during the years leading up the 1986 People Power revolution, when hundreds of thousands of people marched through the streets of Manila to protest against a family that they saw as corrupt.Imelda R. Marcos, left, arriving in Hawaii on Feb. 26, 1986, the day after the Marcos family’s departure into exile from the Philippines.Carl Viti/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe film portrays the former dictator, Ferdinand E. Marcos, who ruled the Philippines for over two decades, as a soft leader incapable of violence — a popular talking point among Marcos family supporters online. The movie also portrays the Marcoses as ordinary people who love simple food, even as they surround themselves with designer bags and jewelry.What the film does not mention: the widespread public anger over the family’s excesses, such as Imelda Marcos’s 1,060 pairs of shoes. Also missing is any mention of the tens of thousands of people who were tortured during martial law.“I was not alive during the term of president Marcos, but I was surprised to see a different story, different from what I heard from other people,” said Maricar Amores Faypon-Sicat, a moviegoer who saw the film on opening night.“I did not know that he wanted to avoid bloodshed, and until the last minute, he was thinking of the Filipino people,” said Ms. Amores Faypon-Sicat, 29.Darryl Yap, the director, said the decision to make the film came only after the presidential election, though he had done some preliminary work ahead of that time. He said the landslide win for Mr. Marcos was “an overwhelming testament that the Filipino people are ready to hear the side of the Marcoses.”Speaking to a select audience at the July 29 premiere, Mr. Yap said the film was the first time that viewers were given an opportunity to watch a film about the Marcos family that was not based on the opposition’s narrative.Supporters of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. at his campaign headquarters during the presidential election in May. Mr. Marcos’s landslide win was “an overwhelming testament that the Filipino people are ready to hear the side of the Marcoses,” according to Darryl Yap, the director of the movie.Jes Aznar for The New York TimesNot everyone has been receptive.Members of the Roman Catholic clergy condemned the depiction of Corazon Aquino, the leader of the opposition, playing mahjong with nuns from the Carmelite monastery in Cebu Province at the height of the protests. One leader of the church has called for a boycott of the movie.Sister Mary Melanie Costillas, the head of the monastery, said the truth was that the nuns were praying and fasting during the demonstrations, fearful that the elder Mr. Marcos would find Mrs. Aquino, who was sheltering at the monastery to avoid being detained. At that time, there were reports that Mr. Marcos had issued a shoot-to-kill order against Mrs. Aquino.“The attempt to distort history is reprehensible,” Sister Costillas said in a statement. She said that the mahjong scene “would trivialize whatever contribution we had to democracy.”The actress playing Irene Marcos, the Marcoses’ youngest child, fueled outrage after she likened the accusations against the family and the details of the father’s human rights abuses to “gossip.”Corazon Aquino, right, a leader of the opposition, during a rally in February 1986. Members of the clergy have condemned how she and the nuns who sheltered her are portrayed in the movie.Romeo Gacad/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHistorians and artists say the movie has opened up a new front in the battle against misinformation in the Philippines, taking something that was once mostly online and bringing it into a new domain.“I now feel that the struggle has shifted to the cultural sphere,” said Bonifacio Ilagan, 71, a renowned playwright. He said that the movie mainly targets the younger generation who never experienced martial law. “They are vulnerable to disinformation. They are the market of the film because they lack historical sense.”Mr. Ilagan, who was tortured during the Marcos years, has teamed up with Joel Lamangan, a well-known movie director, to make a film to counter the narrative of “Maid in Malacanang.” Mr. Lamangan was the first member of the local directors guild to publicly denounce the Marcos-backed film as “pure nonsense,” which he said resulted in death threats.They expect financing their project to be a challenge. “It will be an uphill climb because we have no producer and we have no money,” said Mr. Lamangan, 69, who is also a martial law victim. “But we are trying to do crowdfunding.”The Wall of Remembrance at the martial law museum in Manila. The museum honors those who struggled against the dictatorship of Ferdinand E. Marcos.Ezra Acayan for The New York Times“Maid in Malacanang” was bankrolled by a major local film production company known for producing blockbusters in the Philippines.The underlying narrative of the film is centered on the legacy of the elder Mr. Marcos and how people will remember him. In one scene, a wistful Mr. Marcos asks Irene as she begs him to leave the palace: “How will I face my grandchildren? Their grandfather is a soldier, but he retreated from war.”A weeping Irene responds: “I will make sure that the truth will come out and history will tell your grandkids who you really are.”Mr. Marcos tells his daughter that the opposition was “mad at us because we come from the province. They are mad at us because the people love us. But still, I can’t make myself get angry at them.”At the premiere, the audience applauded. More

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      Fearing a Trump Repeat, Jan. 6 Panel Considers Changes to Insurrection Act

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      The 1807 law allows a president to deploy American troops inside the country to put down a rebellion. Lawmakers fear it could be abused by a future president trying to stoke one.WASHINGTON — In the days before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, some of President Donald J. Trump’s most extreme allies and members of right-wing militia groups urged him to use his power as commander in chief to unleash the military to help keep him in office.Now, as the House committee investigating last year’s riot uncovers new evidence about the lengths to which Mr. Trump was willing to go to cling to power, some lawmakers on the panel have quietly begun discussions about rewriting the Insurrection Act, the 1807 law that gives presidents wide authority to deploy the military within the United States to respond to a rebellion.The discussions are preliminary, and debate over the act has been fraught in the aftermath of Mr. Trump’s presidency. Proponents envision a doomsday scenario in which a rogue future president might try to use the military to stoke — rather than put down — an insurrection, or to abuse protesters. But skeptics worry about depriving a president of the power to quickly deploy armed troops in the event of an uprising, as presidents did during the Civil War and the civil rights era.While Mr. Trump never invoked the law, he threatened to do so in 2020 to have the military crack down on crowds protesting the police killing of George Floyd. Stephen Miller, one of his top advisers, also proposed putting it into effect to turn back migrants at the southwestern border, an idea that was rejected by the defense secretary at the time, Mark T. Esper.And as Mr. Trump grasped for ways to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, some hard-right advisers encouraged him to declare martial law and deploy U.S. troops to seize voting machines. In the run-up to the Jan. 6 attack, members of right-wing militia groups also encouraged Mr. Trump to invoke the law, believing that he was on the brink of giving them approval to descend on Washington with weapons to fight on his behalf.“There are many of us who are of the view that the Insurrection Act, which the former president threatened to invoke multiple times throughout 2020, bears a review,” said Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California and a member of the Jan. 6 committee.While no evidence has emerged that Mr. Trump planned to invoke the act to stay in office, people close to him were pushing for him to do so. Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser, attended a meeting in the Oval Office on Dec. 18, 2020, in which participants discussed seizing voting machines, declaring a national emergency and invoking certain national security emergency powers. That meeting came after Mr. Flynn gave an interview to the right-wing television network Newsmax in which he talked about a purported precedent for deploying troops and declaring martial law to “rerun” the election.Some hard-right advisers to Mr. Trump encouraged him to declare martial law and deploy U.S. troops to seize voting machines after the 2020 election.Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesThe idea was also floated by Roger J. Stone Jr., the political operative and longtime confidant of Mr. Trump, who told the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in an interview that Mr. Trump should consider invoking the Insurrection Act.In the weeks before the riot, the notion was prevalent among militia members and other hard-right supporters of Mr. Trump. It has surfaced repeatedly in evidence that federal prosectors and the House committee have obtained during their investigations into the Capitol attack.In December 2020, Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia group, wrote an open letter to Mr. Trump in which he called on the president to “use the Insurrection Act to ‘stop the steal,’” begin seizing voting data and order a new election.“Clearly, an unlawful combination and conspiracy in multiple states (indeed, in every state) has acted to deprive the people of the fundamental right to vote for their representatives in a clear, fair election,” Mr. Rhodes wrote, adding, “You, and you alone, are fully authorized by the Insurrection Act to determine that such a situation exists and to use the U.S. military and militia to rectify that situation.”Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia group, wrote an open letter to Mr. Trump in which he called on the president to “use the Insurrection Act to ‘stop the steal.’”Jim Urquhart/ReutersIn text messages and social media posts ahead of the Capitol riot, other Oath Keepers members also discussed the possibility of Mr. Trump invoking the Insurrection Act. Two of them, Jessica Watkins and Kelly Meggs, the head of the militia’s Florida chapter, have been charged in connection with the attack.And Mr. Rhodes sent armed men to a hotel in Virginia on Jan. 6 to await Mr. Trump’s order, which the militia leader said would nullify Washington gun restrictions and allow the group to take up arms and fight for the president.The House committee, which has interviewed more than 850 witnesses, is charged with writing an authoritative report about the events that led to the violence of Jan. 6 and coming up with legislative recommendations to try to protect American democracy from a repeat. Though their recommendations are likely to garner widespread attention, they are not guaranteed to become law.One such recommendation is almost certainly to be an overhaul of the Electoral Count Act, which Mr. Trump and his allies tried to use to overturn the 2020 election. In recent weeks, the panel has begun discussing whether to call for revisions to the Insurrection Act, which empowers the president to deploy troops to suppress “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination or conspiracy.”The changes under discussion could add a higher and more detailed threshold for a president to meet before he could deploy troops domestically, including requiring consultation with Congress.“Essentially, the former president threatened by tweet to send in the armed services to take over civilian governments, because he saw things that he didn’t like on TV,” Ms. Lofgren said, referring to Mr. Trump’s threats to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to racial justice protests. “That’s not really the history of the use of the act, and maybe more definition of terms might be in order.”The last time lawmakers turned their attention to a potential overhaul of the Insurrection Act was after Mr. Trump threatened in 2020 to invoke it to crush protests that spread across the country after a white police officer killed Mr. Floyd, an unarmed Black man, in Minnesota.“If a city or state refuses to take the actions necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them,” Mr. Trump said then. White House aides drafted a proclamation to invoke the Insurrection Act in case the president followed through with the threat.Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 3Debating a criminal referral. More