Pentagon takes action against general who tried to engineer soft coup
The Pentagon is taking action against General Mark Milley (ret.), the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who tried to engineer a soft coup during President Donald Trump’s first term.
Milley, who has claimed that Trump is “fascist to the core,” tried to undermine him several times during his presidency. In his capacity as Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Milley secretly contacted the Chinese Communist Party to assure them he would send a warning before any attack by the Trump administration. He also tried to wrest control of the presidency from Trump after January 6, 2021. Journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa wrote that on January 8th Milley held a secret meeting at the Pentagon in which he instructed senior officials in the National Military Command Center to refuse orders from the president unless he, Milley, approved. This included, Milley clarified, orders concerning the nuclear arsenal.
According to the New York Times, the meeting came after Milley received a call from then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was looking for a way to “have the Pentagon leadership essentially remove Mr. Trump from his authorities as the commander in chief.” Milley received a preemptive presidential pardon hours before Joe Biden left office.
The erasure of Mark Milley
Within two hours of his inauguration, the Trump administration removed Milley’s official portrait from the Pentagon that had just been completed ten days before. On Wednesday, Fox News reported that the Pentagon will remove the second and only remaining portrait of Milley, which has been hanging in the Army’s Marshall Corridor.
In addition, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is referring Milley to a review board that will determine whether the retired general should be stripped of a star for his attempts to “undermine the chain of command.” Hegseth has also stripped Milley of his security clearance and security detail.
“There is a new era of accountability in the Defense Department under President Trump’s leadership—and that’s exactly what the American people expect,” a Trump official said.
