While the military may have, as you stated, watched on the sidelines since the election, they had no legal authority to act unless and until the President made a determination that they were needed and called them to duty. I suspect President Trump issued such determination and call to duty before he left office.
This might be a dumb question, but could trump put a future date on something like this? Like schedule it to take effect on a date when he's out of office? If not, this date terrifies me..
I think the January 21, 2021 date shown was simply a notation added to the citation to indicate the law was still in effect when President Trump left office. His action under that law would have occurred before he left office.
He never really left office because he legitimately won the election. This is all a show.
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