Susan Glasser spoke with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Mark Milley:
Donald Trump’s image was flickering on the oversized TV screen in the private cabin of the Air Force jet that was flying General Mark Milley, Trump’s handpicked chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, back to Washington, after a round of meetings in Colorado. Just the day before, Trump had told Steve Hilton, of Fox News, that he had been so worried about the prospect of violence in Washington on January 6th that he had ordered the military to deploy ten thousand troops there, only to be rebuffed by “the people at the Capitol.”
Even as Trump said it, this new excuse from the former President who had incited a mob to march on the Capitol seemed flagrantly untrue. Not only were there no National Guard troops—none at all, never mind ten thousand—ordered to defend Congress but, once it was besieged by the pro-Trump crowd, Trump himself had done nothing to stop the rioters in their vain, and ultimately deadly, attempt to block the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s victory. Throughout his impeachment for his role in the insurrection, Trump and his lawyers had never mentioned this supposed order. Why would Trump and his former advisers—such as the ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and the ex-White House press secretary Kayleigh McEneany—start bragging about it now, seven weeks later?
When I asked Milley about what Trump had said, his reply was clear. “As the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, if there was an order for ten thousand National Guardsmen, I would like to believe I would know that,” he said. “I know that was never transmitted to me by anyone—the President, the Secretary of Defense, or anyone else—for the 6th of January.”
[…]
Milley told me and two other reporters travelling with him this week that he was shocked at what the attack had revealed. “For me, January 6th clearly and unambiguously exposed a domestic extremist threat that I didn’t realize the size, scale, and scope of,” he said. “People are entitled to believe what they want,” he said, “but you can’t act out on it. And you can’t go smash windows at the Capitol. You can’t break into buildings. You can’t put bear spray into a police officer’s face. You can’t bash him with a stick. You can’t commit violence or other acts.” He warned that such crimes undermine “the very essence of what this Republic is all about.”
Milley’s comments were his first about the storming of the Capitol, and much was made this week of his statement that the National Guard had acted with “sprint speed” deploying troops to Capitol Hill once the order was given—a turnaround time of fewer than three hours, which, according to Milley, is as fast as the military’s most élite commandos. “For the Pentagon, that’s super fast,” he said. (The Pentagon’s time line of the day shows that Milley was present at the meeting in which the acting Defense Secretary, Christopher Miller, authorized the emergency deployment of the D.C. National Guard, at 3 p.m. Milley was not involved in a still-disputed back-and-forth that led General William Walker, the D.C. Guard’s commander, to testify this week that he was not given a final approval to deploy until after 5 p.m. on that awful day.)
The sad truth, though, as the conversation with Milley makes clear, is that, as we wait for investigators to definitively establish what the Pentagon did or did not do on the afternoon of January 6th, the troops controlled by America’s civilian leaders were not ready in advance—a state of affairs that could have allowed them to actually stop the storming of the Capitol.
And, for that, it’s hard not to blame Trump and his monthslong toxic attack on the institutions of democracy, including the sanctity of a principle that Milley holds dear: an independent, “apolitical military,” with officers who swear an oath to the Constitution, not to a man. The oath, not incidentally, also pledges officers to combat enemies “foreign and domestic,” and it’s the latter problem, I fear, that poses a challenge for which the U.S military—built to reckon with Vladimir Putin but not Donald Trump—is ill prepared.
We really don’t want them to be involved in any of that. The fact that we’re even talking about it is disturbing.
The real question, for Milley or any of the others at the Pentagon, is whether or not they were doing the bidding of the Commander in Chief during the insurrection. Dana Milbank’s column yesterday laid out the inquiry:
The man ultimately responsible for the delay, Christopher Miller, had been a White House aide before Donald Trump installed him as acting defense secretary in November, as the president began his attempt to overturn his election defeat. Miller did Trump’s political bidding at another point during his 10-week tenure, forcing the National Security Agency to install a Republican political operative as chief counsel.
Also involved in the Pentagon delay was Lt. Gen. Charles Flynn, brother of disgraced former Trump adviser Michael Flynn, convicted (and pardoned) for lying to the FBI. Michael Flynn had suggested Trump declare martial law, and he helped to rile Trump supporters in Washington the day before the Capitol attack. The Pentagon had falsely denied to Post journalists that Charles Flynn was involved in the pivotal call on Jan. 6.AD
Representing the Pentagon on Wednesday fell to Robert Salesses, who haplessly tried to explain the delay. An hour and six minutes of the holdup was because then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy “was asking a lot of questions” about the mission. Another piece of the delay: The 36 minutes between when the Pentagon claims Miller authorized the action and when the D.C. Guard was informed of the decision. “That’s an issue,” Salesses allowed.
Curiously, the Pentagon claims Miller’s authorization came at 4:32 — 15 minutes after Trump told his “very special” insurrectionists to “go home in peace.” Was Miller waiting for Trump’s blessing before defending the Capitol?
The Pentagon’s 199-minute delay looks worse in light of a Jan. 4 memo Miller issued saying that without his “personal authorization” the D.C. Guard couldn’t “be issued weapons, ammunition, bayonets, batons or ballistic protection equipment such as helmets and body armor.”
The Army secretary added more restrictions the next day, saying in a memo that he would “withhold authority” for the D.C. Guard to deploy a “quick reaction force” and that he would “require a concept of operation” before allowing a quick reaction force to react. McCarthy even blocked the D.C. Guard in advance from redeploying to the Capitol guardsmen assigned to help the D.C. police elsewhere in Washington.
Without such restrictions, Walker, the D.C. Guard commander, could have dispatched nearly 200 guardsmen soon after the Capitol Police mayday call. “That number could have made a difference,” Walker testified.
Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican, was incredulous. “There are three unarmed national guardsmen who are helping with traffic control … and they were not permitted to move a block away without getting permission from the secretary of the Army?”AD
“That’s correct,” Walker replied.
Miller “required the personal approval of the secretary of defense for the National Guard to be issued riot gear?” Portman asked.
“That’s correct,” Walker replied. “Normally for a safety and force-protection matter, a commander would be able to authorize his guardsmen to protect themselves.”
But this was not normal. The Pentagon claims the restrictions were in response to criticism of the heavy-handed deployment of the National Guard in Washington during racial justice protests last summer. Maybe so. But Walker testified that when the police chiefs “passionately pleaded” for the Guard’s help on Jan. 6, senior Army officials on the call said it wouldn’t be “a good optic.” They thought “it could incite the crowd” and advised against it.
During this moment of crisis — an attempted coup in the Capitol — the defense secretary and the Army secretary were “not available,” Walker testified.
The nation deserves to know why.
I don’t know the status of the Commission that Speaker Pelosi has in mind. The last I heard they were squabbling over how many Democrats and Republicans would be on it and it seemed obvious that since most Republicans are Trump acolytes there would be little point since they would sabotage the proceeding.