Crisis of Command: The Pentagon, The President, and January 6 (Part II)
Miller and Milley on watch against Trump using “the powers of the military to stay in office”While Milley reportedly had reservations about the new acting Secretary of Defense, Miller later told Jonathan Karl that his priorities in taking the role were three: “no military coup, no major war, and no troops in the streets.” Milley had a similar aim: in their account of the final days of the Trump Presidency in the book I Alone Can Fix It, Washington Post journalists Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker recount that Milley saw his role as one to “protect against Trump and his people manipulating the military,” and that he told “confidants he would never openly defy the president; that would be illegal and violate his own sense of duty.” He sought to get out ahead of any move by Trump or his loyalists to “use the powers of the FBI, the CIA and especially the military to stay in office.”
In the fall, Milley had written to assure lawmakers, “In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law U.S. courts and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S. military.” The U.S. Army’s after-action report for Jan. 6 states that the Chairman was prompted to make this public declaration due to “concerns related to the role of the military in the transition of government after the November election.” Following the election and concerns raised by the new leadership at the Defense Department, Chairman Milley, standing alongside the new acting secretary of defense, made a point to restate the military’s constitutional role. “We do not take an oath to an individual. No, we do not take an oath to a country, a tribe or religion. We take an oath to the Constitution. And every soldier that is represented in this museum, every sailor, airman, Marine, Coast Guardsman, each of us will protect and defend that document, regardless of personal price,” Milley said during remarks at the opening of the US Army museum on Nov. 11.
When Trump issued a Dec. 19th call to action to his supporters to protest the certification of the Electoral College vote at the Capitol on Jan. 6, “Milley told his staff that he believed Trump was stoking unrest, possibly in hopes of an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act and call out the military,” according to Leonnig and Rucker. Milley also shared these concerns with some trusted associates. According to Susan Glasser’s reporting, Milley specifically said he was concerned about a scenario in which Trump tried “to use the military on the streets of America to prevent the legitimate, peaceful transfer of power.” His associates were reportedly concerned too. On Jan. 2, a former defense secretary reportedly told Milley that “all ten living former secretaries of defense had reached the same conclusion.”
The following day, on Jan. 3, those former officials — including Ashton Carter, Dick Cheney, William Cohen, Mark Esper, Robert Gates, Chuck Hagel, James Mattis, Leon Panetta, William Perry and Donald Rumsfeld – published an op-ed in the Washington Post titled, “Involving the military in election disputes would cross into dangerous territory.” Noting the “solemn obligations of the U.S. armed forces and Defense Department,” the former secretaries wrote that “acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller and his subordinates — political appointees, officers and civil servants — are each bound by oath, law and precedent to facilitate the entry into office of the incoming administration, and to do so wholeheartedly. They must also refrain from any political actions that undermine the results of the election or hinder the success of the new team.”
In his written prepared testimony, Miller stated that the former secretaries’ op-ed as well as “fears that the President would invoke the Insurrection Act to politicize the military in an anti-democratic manner” affected his decision to restrain the use of Guard forces on Jan. 6. We quote these passages in full:
"My concerns regarding the appropriate and limited use of the military in domestic matters were heightened by commentary in the media about the possibility of a military coup or that advisors to the President were advocating the declaration of martial law.
I was also cognizant of the fears promulgated by many about the prior use of the military in the June 2020 response to protests near the White House and fears that the President would invoke the Insurrection Act to politicize the military in an anti-democratic manner. And, just before the Electoral College certification, ten former Secretaries of Defense signed an Op-Ed piece published in the Washington Post warning of the dangers of politicizing and using inappropriately the military.No such thing was going to occur on my watch but these concerns, and hysteria about them, nonetheless factored into my decisions regarding the appropriate and limited use of our Armed Forces to support civilian law enforcement during the Electoral College certification. My obligation to the Nation was to prevent a constitutional crisis. That, in addition to the limited request from the Mayor for D.C. National Guard deployment distanced from the Capitol, is why I agreed only to deploy our Soldiers in areas away from the Capitol, avoiding amplifying the irresponsible narrative that your Armed Forces were somehow going to be co-opted in an effort to overturn the election. But I did not believe, and I think my senior advisors shared this view, that January 6, 2021 was going to be “business-as-usual.”In his witness interview with the Department’s inspector general, Miller also made explicit that concerns about the use of the Insurrection Act motivated him to place specific constraints on the use of the Guard in the authorizations promulgated for Jan. 6. The former acting secretary of defense said:
"There was absolutely no way … I was putting U.S. military forces at the Capitol, period.” He cited media stories alleging that the President’s advisors were pushing him to declare martial law to invalidate the election and that Mr. Miller was an ally installed as the Acting SecDef to facilitate a coup. He also cited a January 3, 2021 open letter from 10 former Secretaries of Defense warning the Defense Department not to use the military in a manner antithetical to the U.S. Constitution. Mr. Miller stated that he “made a very deliberate decision that I would not put U.S. military people … East of the 9th Street, northwest. … And the reason for that was I knew if the morning of the 6th or prior if we put U.S. military personnel on the Capitol, I would have created the greatest Constitutional crisis probably since the Civil War.” (internal ellipses in original)The threat of creating the “the greatest Constitutional crisis probably since the Civil War” is, to be sure, not likely merely a concern about the “optics” of having Guard troops protect the Capitol. Another possible indication of the significance that the President might seek to invoke the Insurrection Act is contained in the inspector general report’s conclusions. Taking into account Miller’s statement in his witness interview, the inspector general concludes that Pentagon officials correctly did not advise Trump he could consider invoking the Act. “DoD officials received information from civilian law enforcement channels that did not warrant advising the President to consider invoking the authorities in the Insurrection Act or National Emergencies Act,” the report states.
Unprecedented constraints on the DC National GuardWhile the Pentagon’s top leaders and their associates became increasingly concerned that Trump might attempt to use the military to hold onto power, questions arose as to whether and under what conditions to approve the DC Mayor’s requests for DC National Guard assistance for the events planned on Jan. 6.
In his congressional testimony and interview with the inspector general, Miller has been most explicit that concerns about Trump’s invoking the Insurrection Act or otherwise employing the military to interfere with the transition of power shaped his decision to restrict the use of the Guard including the “very deliberate decision that I would not put U.S. military people … East of the 9th Street, northwest.” The inspector general’s report notes that “other witnesses concurred with Mr. Miller” including Secretary of the Army McCarthy. “Mr. McCarthy told us … that Mr. Miller made it clear that the military would not be involved in certifying the election results and that ‘10 different news agencies’ asked him about military use and martial law. Mr. McCarthy said that he wanted to make sure that civilian law enforcement, not the military, was in the lead,” the inspector general’s report states.
These statements by McCarthy, however, could be simply about the optics or perception of military involvement especially after the summer protests. That said, as the bipartisan Senate report explained, “When General Walker was asked whether the issue of ‘optics’ of a uniformed presence was ‘ever brought up by Army leadership when the DC National Guard was deployed during the summer of 2020,’ he responded, ‘It was never discussed [in] June. It was never discussed July 4th when we were supporting the city. It was never discussed August 28th when we supported the city.’” The Senate report adds, “Other events also informed DOD’s posture in the days leading up to January 6. … Mr. McCarthy explained that ‘[the] hyperbole . . . about martial law and [the] 10 Sec Def letter’ were ‘discussed in the entire Pentagon.’”
In the new year, when Walker was preparing a slide show on planning support for Jan. 6, “Walker told [the inspector general] that …. McCarthy and senior Army leaders talked about optics, and how the DCNG personnel were not to be close to the Capitol.” Chief of the Staff of the Army, Gen. James McConville confirmed this posture. He told the inspector general that “the general feeling of all those involved [with approving the D.C. Request for Assistance] was that the military would have no role, and many people talked about the optics of having military at the Capitol. What that would look like, how that would influence even some of the demonstrators or protesters. And so there was a general feeling among everybody that the military would be in a very small and supporting role.”
There was even a point where the Secretary of the Army called D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Robert J. Contee on the afternoon of Jan. 3 and “indicated that the DoD was going to deny the D.C. RFA [Request for Assistance] and expressed concern with the optics of boots on the ground anywhere near the Capitol,” according to the inspector general’s report (emphasis added).
Ultimately the Pentagon accepted the DC authorities’ request but imposed unusual substantive constraints on the location, equipment, and role for the DC National Guard. And the Pentagon imposed unusual procedural constraints on authorization for any modifications, even including having to go up the chain of command to get approval from the Secretary of the Army to move a Guard soldier from one traffic control point to another a block away. “Nineteen years I never had that before happen,” Maj. Gen. Walker said in his testimony before the Senate. A Jan. 5 letter from McCarthy to Walker also withheld the ability of the Commander to deploy the Guard’s Quick Reaction Force without first presenting a “Concept of Operation” (CONOP) to the Secretary of the Army and obtaining the Secretary’s prior approval, which Walker also described as unusual. The DC National Guard’s senior Judge Advocate General wrote, “McCarthy had typically trusted Walker to deploy the QRF at his discretion. … If the restriction was not there, Walker would likely have interpreted the riot on Capitol Hill as a ‘last resort’ situation and employed the QRF on his own initiative in support of MPD at the Capitol.”
Trump, Meadows: Mobilize National Guard to protect Trump supporters (Jan. 3-5, 2021)On Jan. 3, the same day that the former secretary’s op-ed appeared in the Post, Milley and Miller met with Trump in the Oval Office around 5:30 pm to discuss a matter involving Iran. At the meeting, Trump queried his defense secretary about preparations for Jan. 6 (see Senate bipartisan report). According to Leonnig and Rucker, Trump wanted to know whether there were plans to have adequate forces on hand that day, and in a pull-aside Milley asked Miller to assure him of the meaning of the exchange: “He approached Miller privately. Milley wanted to be clear that when Trump said ‘you’re all set,’ he was referring only to National Guard capabilities. ‘There’s nothing else set, right?’ Milley asked. Miller told him, yes, the National Guard was all the president meant. Nothing else was in the works.”
In testimony before the House Oversight Committee in an answer to a direct question from Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), Miller said that the President told him to “do whatever was necessary to protect the demonstrators that were executing their constitutionally protected rights.” That statement is consistent with an email Meadows sent to an individual on Jan. 5, which “said that the National Guard would be present to ‘protect pro Trump people’ and that many more would be available on standby,” according to records Meadows provided the House select committee.
On the late afternoon or evening of Jan. 5, the President spoke with Miller (who was reportedly with Patel) and said that the acting secretary of defense should have as many as 10,000 troops on hand for the following day – which Miller did not follow through on. That’s according to Miller’s written testimony before the House oversight committee, his interview with the Defense Department inspector general, and his statements to the press. It’s also consistent with Trump’s own account. A discrepancy is that Meadows referred to it as a “direct order” from the President (in a Feb. 7, 2021 interview with Fox host Maria Bartiromo), Trump said it was a “recommend[ation]” and “suggestion,” given “not as an order” (in a Dec. 11, 2021 public event). Miller described his reaction, “And we’re like, ‘Maybe. But you know, someone’s going to have to ask for it.’” What’s more, “Miller and other senior Pentagon officials did not relay the 10,000 figure to anyone outside the Defense Department, according to a former U.S. official who was familiar with the matter,” reported the Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler.
Miller, Milley: Consider revoking Trump supporters’ permits at Capitol (Jan. 4, 2021)Meanwhile, the acting Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were working to prevent an unruly situation during the certification. On Jan. 4, Miller convened a conference call with Cabinet members in which he raised concerns about militia groups such as the Boogaloo Boys and Proud Boys because he recognized “6 January was the critical day in many of these conspiratorial-minded folks’ narrative, and that [it] . . . could be a pretty dramatic day.” During the Cabinet meeting, according to Miller, both “he and General Milley voiced concern about the permits that had been issued, questioning whether there was a mechanism to revoke permits for the 1,000 to 2,000 people who had been granted permission to gather on Capitol grounds.”
https://www.justsecurity.org/79623/crisis-of-command-the-pentagon-the-president-and-january-6/
