REVEALED: Trump's CIA director warned of 'right-wing coup' as White House tried to corrupt military
Gina Haspel, Trump's pick for CIA director, during her Senate confirmation hearing. (Screenshot)
November 11, 2021
Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, received an ominous phone call on Election night and then another warning after Donald Trump fired his secretary of defense a few days later.
Milley heard from a fellow four-star general and close friend shortly after polls closed to remind him that "your loyalty is to the Constitution," and that he represented the "stability of this republic," and then-defense secretary Mike Esper also issued dark warnings of his own -- until he was abruptly fired six days later, according to the new book, "I Alone Can Fix It," excerpted by Newsweek.
"We are on the way to a right-wing coup," CIA director Gina Haspel told Milley after Esper's ouster.
The firing had been orchestrated by a political appointee in the White House office of personnel, whose purge of anyone deemed insufficiently loyal to Trump had accelerated since the election, both Milley and Haspel feared they would be next on the chopping block.
"In the 'tank,' the military-only chamber famous for deliberations and private discussion, the seven joint chiefs, plus Milley and the vice chairman, quietly and privately began talking about what their options would be if they had to block an unlawful order from the commander-in-chief," Newsweek reported, based on the book. "According to a retired general officer who spoke to one of the participants, in the tank the discussions were frank and emotional. 'They grappled with wide-ranging questions,' the senior officer said. 'Not just how to protect the republic should Trump threaten, but also ways to protect the military institution, a goal that didn't always easily mesh with what needed to get done.'"
Milley gave a public speech on Veterans Day 2020 that gave voice to his concerns and served as a reminder to active-duty troops that they did "not take an oath to a king or a queen, a tyrant or a dictator" or any individual, but behind the scenes the remaining heads of the military and national security apparatus took steps to prevent their services and agencies from being corrupted by the White House.
"What was unfolding, though, was unique among coups," Newsweek reported, based on the book. "Nobody really thought the disorganized and isolated Trump was capable of organizing anything. And the president didn't have the support of the military or the CIA or the FBI, or any of the other national security agencies, perhaps, with the exception of the Department of Homeland Security, which had become embarrassingly partisan. Milley even remarked privately that a coup wasn't possible because his camp had all the guns — a comment that was both comforting and chilling, one that showed how perilous the post-election period had become."
In a sense, the military did undertake a coup -- against the sitting president's unconstitutional efforts to overthrow the democratic will of the voters.
IN OTHER NEWS: Trump warns 'we will come back' in self-pitying Veterans Day rant
Leave a Comment
Related Post