Kevin Lamarque/REUTERS
- Trump said that Gen. Mark Milley should be “court-martialed” if the reports are true that he feared a potential coup.
- “There was no talk of a coup, there was no coup, it all never happened,” the former president said.
- Milley has been the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff since September 2019.
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Former President Donald Trump on Friday said that General Mark Milley should be “court-martialed and tried” if he believed that the former president sought to carry out a coup, referencing an excerpt from a forthcoming book by Washington Post reporters Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker.
Trump has pushed back against the excerpt from “I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year,” which said that Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, discussed the possibility of a coup with friends, legislators, and colleagues.
“The writings within these third-rate books are Fake News, and ‘General’ Milley (who [former Defense Secretary James] Mattis wanted to send to Europe in order to get rid of him), if he said what was reported, perhaps should be impeached, or court-martialed and tried,” the former president said in a statement. “He tries to be a tough guy, which he is not, but he choked beyond belief as soon as a microphone was stuffed in front of his face or, at the mere sight of the Fake News Media.”
He added: “There was no talk of a coup, there was no coup, it all never happened, and it’s just a waste of words by fake writers and a General who didn’t have a clue.”
After the 2020 election, Trump refused to meet with his successor, now-President Joe Biden, and spent weeks seeking to overturn the results through litigation and strong-arm tactics.
The excerpts from the book reveal that Milley felt as though he needed to be “on guard” in the remaining days of the administration after the election.
“They may try, but they’re not going to f—ing succeed,” Milley reportedly told his deputies. “You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with the guns.”
CNN reported on the bombshell detail from the book on Wednesday.
That day same, Trump also fired back at the comments reportedly made by Milley.
“I never threatened, or spoke to, anyone about a coup of our government. So ridiculous! Sorry to inform you, but the Election is my form of ‘coup’, and if I was going to do a coup, one of the last people I would want to do it with is Mark General Milley,” Trump said in a statement.
On Friday, Trump went after Milley once again, expressing that he had “lost total confidence” in the general while in office while also bringing up the now-infamous photo op held at St. John’s Church in Washington, DC, last year.
“Never once did I have a discussion with him about bringing in the Military, or a ‘coup,’ which makes sense, because I lost total confidence in him and the way he handled himself on our little walk to the church,” Trump said.
The photo op occured after protestors were violently cleared from Lafayette Park, which immediately attracted criticism. However, the inspector general for the Interior Department determined in June 2021 that the US Park Police and Secret Service did not clear the park for Trump’s photoshoot, but to install anti-scale fencing.
Milley apologized for taking part in the walk alongside Trump last year.
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