Top general apologizes for Trump's St. John's Church photo-op: 'I should not have been there'

Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has apologized for taking part in President Donald Trump's now-infamous photo op that required deploying pepper spray against peaceful protesters.

The New York Times reports that Milley made his apology in a prerecorded video commencement address to National Defense University.

"I should not have been there," Milley acknowledged in the video. "My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics."

Milley also called his involvement in the operation a "mistake that I have learned from."

In the middle of protests against police brutality earlier this month, police and other law enforcement officials fired pepper balls and smoke canisters at peaceful protesters who were in Lafayette Park near the St. John's Church in Washington, D.C.

After those demonstrators had been cleared, Trump and several administration officials, including Milley and Attorney General Bill Barr, walked to the front of the church, where the president held up a Bible.

The photo op was widely condemned by many former military officials, including former Trump Defense Secretary James Mattis, who said the president's desire to involve the military in America's domestic politics was a threat to the country's Constitutional order.