Former Military Brass, "Never Trumper" Defend Milley's Actions Post Jan 6
"We're talking about a commander-in-chief that, as the book describes, was so far off the rails," retired general says
While what Gen Mark Milley is said to have done in the days following the deadly January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol may not have been proper in a technical sense, he was acting honorably as a guardrail against an unstable president in Donald Trump.
That's according to retired military leadership and at least one prominent “Never Trumper” Republican.
Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, of The Washington Post, sketch stunning new details about what was going on in official Washington DC after violent domestic terrorists supporting Trump rioted and stormed the Capitol Building in an attempt to overturn the legitimate and lawful certification of Joe Biden as the next president of the United States.
Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was said to have seriously worried for Trump's state of mind following the events of January 6, according to a new book, titled Peril, the book by the two Post journalists.
So much so, according to the book, that Milley took a call from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, agreeing with her that Trump was “crazy,” and worried that the then-president could start a war — or even try to use his authority over the nation's nuclear arsenal — in some desperate bid to remain in power.
Milley conducted back channel communications with his counterpart in China, according to the book, to reassure Chinese leadership that the United States was neither planning to attack China nor was it on the verge of collapse.
Milley went even further, Woodward and Costa say, by holding a secret meeting with military leadership at the Pentagon, telling them that he needed to be involved in any attack orders — including the use of the nuclear arsenal — which might come from Trump.
While the political right predictably flailed Milley for “treason,” others have a different view.
“You know, throughout this whole period I had rather firsthand understanding of what was going on in government and it scared me. I was convinced without question that we were on the edge of an ultimate constitutional crisis,” said retired Army Gen Barry McCaffrey, a one-time commander of US Southern Command. “I thought it was unlikely that Trump would use nuclear weapons, although he had full legal and constitutional authority in theory to command that.
“But the one that bothered me the most was the secretary of defense was an acting sec def. The Constitution says the Senate will be involved in approving senior officers of government. There was nobody left,” McCaffrey added. “So I think what General Milley was doing — and by the way, routinely, the chairman, the service chiefs, the joint combatant commander routinely are in contact with their counterparts globally. It’s part of the deterrence of unwanted combat. I think he felt it important to not end up with a World War I start-of-a-war through miscalculation on the part of the Chinese.
“Though again, I think we ought to be fortunate, we’ve got this Princeton grad, tremendous combat officer, extremely intelligent, law based, trying to safeguard the transition to a duly elected President Biden administration. He was scared to death of what the country was on the edge of,” he said.
The criticism of Milley, essentially, is that he was doing an end-run around Trump as the president of the United States.
Lt Gen Mark Hertling disputes that characterization.
"Well, I'm not sure I would call it an end run, Alisyn. I think General Milley took some very prudent measures,” he said in an on-air appearance on CNN. “As a former member of the Joint Staff, of the J7, I remember when the chairman would pull all of his staff officers in, we would pull all the brigadier generals, the one-stars that were working the shift in the National Military Command Centers, as Jamie just said, and say, ‘Hey, we're in a tense situation.’ And this was during the start of the Afghan war. ‘We're in a tense situation. Make sure your reporting is right, make sure the processes and procedures are run the right way.’ The problem is that we're talking about a commander-in-chief that, as the book describes, was so far off the rails, that General Milley felt concerned about that.”
“Shattering of civilian-military relations”
Steve Schmidt, a former top Republican strategist and a prominent “Never Trumper,” said in a separate interview that the entire episode as spelled out in the book is frightening.
"Secondarily, and I agree with General McCaffrey, I do think that history will likely regard General Milley as an honorable man. But what this represents is a shattering of civilian-military relations in this country,” Schmidt said. “On whose instructions did the principal military advisor and senior ranking military officer in the United States pick up the phone and have that conversation with General Li in China? Who initiated that conversation? Was he responding to a prompt from the Chinese?
“The American people, certainly the American government, the Congress of the United States and its oversight capacity has to get an answer to this,” Schmidt added. “Now, I don’t blame General Milley for any of this inasmuch as I blame Donald Trump after years of vandalism, the near collapse of the government of the United States.
“And what you see here is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff acting outside of any boundaries that were ever considered for the job in an extra-constitutional manner. I think that should frighten all of us. It’s extremely alarming,” he said.
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