September 30, 2021

USA: While Working Under President Trump, General Milley Told Communist China Military Leader He Would Warn Him And Would Not Carry Out Any Kind Of Military Action Ordered by Trump

TheGreggJarrett.com
written by Staff
Thursday September 16, 2021

Milley is a threat to our Constitution, our democracy, and our country’s national security. He is, in a word, dangerous.

Gregg Jarrett joined ‘Hannity’ to discuss the growing controversy surrounding Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Milley. If the reporting in the soon-to-be-released book Peril is accurate, Milley should be relieved of duty pending a thorough investigation.

An independent and bipartisan commission is a good idea; the military is also duty-bound under the Military Code to conduct its own probe. If there’s credible evidence, Milley should face a general court martial.

The charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice Milley could face would include:
  • Usurping Authority of the President…known as sedition
  • Aiding the Enemy…providing advanced intelligence
  • Possible Espionage…conveying top secret and classified military information to a foreign adversary
Milley didn’t seem to understand that he has no authority whatsoever. None. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, he’s an adviser to the president and the security council. Nothing more. He is not in the chain of command, meaning he’s prohibited by law from having any operational command authority.

Yet, Milley allegedly convened a covert meeting of top Pentagon officials and instructed them that no one was to act on orders for a military strike —even from the president— without his approval. Milley was seizing presidential power and actively subverting the elected civilian leadership embedded in our constitution.

Furthermore, he then advised the Chinese that there would be no surprise attack against them. His office admits this. But he also reportedly vowed that he would warn the Chinese in advance of any attack. Good Lord! What if the Chinese had decided, “This is great information; we can now launch our own devastating preemptive attack against the U.S. because there’s a power vacuum in there!”

No amount of rationalization by Milley can justify his lawless and treacherous actions. He claims he thought Trump might attempt a coup after losing the election. Milley’s dishonorable response was to mount a coup of his own against the president.

In our democracy, we don’t let one man decide all on his own, “I think the president is unstable…so I’m taking over control.” That’s not his judgment to make. He’s not remotely qualified. Nor is the Joint Chiefs constitutionally authorized. He is nowhere in the chain of command. The White House janitor has as much power as Milley.

It’s insane that Biden is defending Milley. Will the general at some point (tomorrow, next week, next month) decide that Biden is mentally deficient or unstable and once against try to seize presidential powers and control over the military?

Biden better think about that —to the extent that he’s alert and conscious— before continuing to support Milley. Milley is a threat to our Constitution, our democracy, and our country’s national security. He is, in a word, dangerous.
JonathanTurley.org
written by Jonathan Turley
Sunday September 19, 2021

Below is my column in the Hill on allegations concerning Gen. Mark Milley in the final days of the Trump Administration. Milley is expected to answer questions in full this month before Congress. However, if true, the statements made to subordinates and his Chinese counterpart would constitute serious violations for a military officer. What is striking is how many on the left applauded an account of the military unlawfully assuming control of such decisions to negate or countermand a sitting president. Much like the embrace of censorship, the embrace of such alleged a military challenge to civil control would once be viewed as anathema on the left.

Here is the column:

“Peril,” the new book by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, is the latest Washington Beltway bombshell account that can light up Washington, although sometimes those fizzle upon later review. The bombshell in this book is the claim that Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, told subordinates to follow him, not then-President Trump, on any order for war, and then allegedly told his Chinese military counterpart that he would warn of any Trump-ordered attack.

According to the book, Milley was deeply alarmed by the Jan. 6 riot on Capitol Hill. His reaction has been well-documented previously, including his oft-quoted reference to the riot being a potential “Reichstag moment” — analogizing Trump’s use of the election controversy to Hitler’s staged burning of the German parliament building in order to grab power.

But Woodward and Costa further claim that Milley stressed the “process” for using nuclear weapons with senior military officers and emphasized that he had to be part of any order. They say Milley made each commander at the National Military Command Center affirmatively state that — according to “procedure” — they would look to Milley to confirm such orders, and Milley considered it an “oath.”

The authors say Milley agreed with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that Trump was crazy and could launch a war in the final days of his presidency. They claim Milley called Gen. Li Zuocheng of China’s People’s Liberation Army four days before the election, on Oct. 30, 2020, and then again on Jan. 8, to assure him no attack would be launched — and, if there were to be an attack, that Milley would alert his counterpart in advance.

Washington scandal books are a genre unto themselves. Each has some key revelation crafted to fuel a scandal and sales; often, by the time fact-checkers catch up, the support for the claim is largely irrelevant. That was the apparent case with Michael Wolff’s book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” which unleashed a torrent of alarm over claims that top officials were moving to secretly record Trump, in order to declare him incompetent under the 25th Amendment. Journalists later found an array of errors in those accounts, including core claims.

Some reporters like Fox News Channel’s Pentagon correspondent, Jennifer Griffin, have expressed doubt about the Woodward-Costa account. Griffin noted that “there were 15 people on the video teleconference calls,” with Chinese officials, “including a representative of the State Department,” and there was no indication of such alarming content. Pentagon officials insist that the accounts were taken out of context and the authors misrepresented routine meetings and calls.

The book’s account could not be more serious for Milley. While some pundits praised Milley for allegedly taking control over nuclear weapons and war declarations, the allegations — if true — could subject Milley to a possible court martial for usurping the authority of the commander in chief under Article II of the Constitution. Many of us criticized Trump for his Jan. 6 rally speech and his failure to immediately call for his supporters to leave the Capitol. There was palpable fear in Washington that Trump would not accept defeat, fear fueled by reckless references of Trump supporters to declarations of martial law.

Yet such concerns — even if held in good faith — would not justify what is claimed by Woodward and Costa. If Milley told subordinates they were to await his concurrence on an attack order, he would have elevated his authority over the express authority delegated to a president. There is a “process” that includes the chain of command. As commander in chief, a president can always deliver a direct order to any subordinate — and Milley would not have the authority to countermand the commander in chief.

Furthermore, if Milley promised to warn the Chinese of an attack, it could be an act not of insubordination but of treason.

Military officers have long wrestled with such difficult questions. As shown in the Nuremberg trials after World War II, military officers cannot simply claim to “follow orders” when those orders constitute war crimes. Moreover, the U.S. military has long recognized the need for officers to refuse a clearly unlawful order; as shown in United States v. Calley, concerning the My Lai massacre, a clearly unlawful order must not only be refused but, if followed, can lead to court martial.

The problem with this book’s account is that Trump clearly would have had the authority to issue an attack order. Moreover, he presumably would have had a stated reason, even if Milley doubted the justification. The standard under the military code is not a “reasonable basis” to believe in the legitimacy of an action but the actual legality of an action.

What the book describes is not necessarily an unlawful order but an allegedly unstable president — and there is a process for dealing with that eventuality. It is called the 25th Amendment. If Milley felt Trump was no longer capable of exercising his authority as commander in chief, then he had a duty to raise Trump’s removal — not to unilaterally assume the powers of commander in chief.

Under Section 4, Vice President Pence and a majority of the Cabinet could have signed a declaration to Congress that Trump was incapable of holding office. In such a highly unlikely circumstance, Pence immediately would have assumed power, and Trump would have had four days to object. Pence and the Cabinet then would have had to send a second declaration. Both chambers of Congress then would have had to vote by two-thirds to remove the president. Congress has 21 days for such a vote — and, in this case, Trump’s term in office would have ended within that period.

It is doubtful that Trump could have been removed under this process — but Milley is not allowed to create a second option. There is no license for improvisation in the Constitution on this question. In a system based on civilian control of the military, there can be no blurring of the lines of authority. Good intentions are no defense.

Under Article 94 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, mutiny and sedition traditionally have been characterized as “the gravest and most criminal of the offenses known to the military code.” If the Woodward-Costa account is true, it is unclear why subordinate military officers did not come forward with concerns over an unlawful order — not from Trump but from Milley. That is why the book’s sensational account seems driven more by sales than sources.

Congress should look into this account and deal not only with Milley’s alleged actions, but also the options allowed to officers in such circumstances. Milley has not been shy about publicly addressing controversies related to the military, from the Jan. 6 riot to white supremacy, but he has been slow to deny these accounts. The book says Milley treated his alleged order as an “oath” that subordinates would not act on Trump’s order alone — yet it is his own oath that is now in question.

Starting his military career in 1980, Milley swore to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic” and to “bear true faith and allegiance to the same.” He needs to establish that he did not lose faith with the Constitution by creating an ad hoc chain of command, with himself as the effective commander in chief.
The Last Refuge
General Mark Milley’s Sketchy October 2020 Intelligence on China Fears Likely Came From Twitter and New York Times, Congressman Mike Turner Will Confirm
written by Sundance
Thursday September 30, 2021

CTH has discovered what we believe will turn out to be the currently classified “intelligence product” that Joint Chief’s Chairman Mark Milley has been claiming as justification for his unilateral phone call with the Chinese military to discuss their concerns. {Background One -and- Background Two} I am 80% certain we have located that intelligence product, and you ain’t gonna believe where it was from.

Yesterday, congressman Mike Turner of Ohio noted that no one in the entire system of intelligence and oversight had any idea what intelligence product Mark Milley was describing in his two days of testimony. Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said Wednesday in response to the claims of Milley that no such intelligence product ever existed. Congressman Turner who sits on the House Intel Committee (HPSCI) and the House Armed Services Committee confirmed the same.

Congressman Turner has demanded that General Milley turn over this mysterious, secret, oddly untraceable intelligence product that Milley alone has seen. WATCH:
Mike Turner (video 02:30): “Now, you claim that you had information, and it’s all over that China was worried about an imminent attack. You did not tell the president, the vice president, the White House chief of staff, the national security adviser, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, the director of national intelligence, either of the relevant committees in the House, including the big eight, which you know include Intel.

You didn’t tell the Intelligence Committee. You didn’t tell the Armed Services Committee. You report that after you took it upon yourself to have this phone conversation, that you told them of the conversation heard not that China believed that we were going to imminently attack them, which by the way, has never been true in my lifetime.”

“But you chose instead to handle it yourself with a phone call. So, General Milley, you offered all of the concerning intelligence, and I’m going to request that you provide it to us. I would like you to provide us the relevant intelligence information that you based your belief that China was going to — the belief that there was an imminent attack.

I also want your request for declassification of the approval that you release that information that China believed so, including your request for declassification of your conversation that you had with General Li and any approvals. I want a transcript of your call with General Li, and I also want any readouts, memorandums, notice of calls, or outcomes.”
Congressman Turner wants to see the magic intelligence that no one else has seen except General Milley.

Keep in mind Milley has described this “intelligence product” as originating in September and October of 2020. As Milley said in both days of his testimony: “concerning intelligence, which caused us to believe the Chinese were worried about an attack on them by the United States.” Milley then organized a call to the Chinese on October 30, 2020, based on this intelligence.

The most likely source of that Milley/China intelligence is: from TWITTER and from The New York Times.
New York Times – […] The propaganda has accompanied a series of military drills in recent weeks, including the test-firing of ballistic missiles and the buzzing of Taiwan’s airspace. Together, they are intended to draw stark red lines for the United States, signaling that China would not shrink from a military clash.

While the prospect of war remains remote, the militaristic tone reflects the hawkishness of the country’s leader, Xi Jinping. The risk is that the propaganda could translate into more provocative actions, at a time when the relationship with the United States has sharply deteriorated. The recent military moves in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait raise the possibility of actual clashes, intended or not.

In Washington, President Trump’s hospitalization for treatment of Covid-19 has overshadowed everything else, creating the impression that his administration is in chaos and raising fears of a decision-making void. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cut short his trip to Asia this week, although he is expected to push for confronting China when he meets in Tokyo with his counterparts from Australia, India and Japan. (read more)
There it is folks…. In October of 2020 President Trump was battling COVID-19, and the opportunity arose with a distracted nation for the Fourth Branch of Government to insert a narrative using General Mark Milley to fulfill their intents and purposes.

I can almost guarantee to a certainty this is what Congressman Mike Turner (R-OH) will discover when he forces General Milley to show him the intelligence.

Keep in mind the circular process of intelligence officials (1) leaking to/influencing media; (2) building a narrative; and then (3) using those same media reports as evidence to support their claims, is exactly the process we have seen play out over the past five years within the Trump-Russia hoax. The China-Fear-of-Attack hoax was simply a deployment of the same playbook.

Lastly, it is also important to keep in mind the Pentagon mistake of the Predator Drone strike against innocent civilians near the Kabul airport was also based on flawed intelligence from the same origination sources.

Again, a strong likelihood the overarching intelligence apparatus was attempting to deflect attention from their own failures in Afghanistan by putting the Pentagon in the central spotlight by manipulating an attack as a blame-casting maneuver. [Team1, State Dept/Intel Community -vs- Team2, White House/Pentagon]

The purposefully false drone hit, is bolstered by the same IC (Team1) then giving the New York Times the evidence to showcase the attack was a mistake by Team2. The Fourth Branch of Government knows how to manipulate outcomes for their own intents and purposes. {Go Deep}
Rumble — NATO Takes Command Of America's Top Naval Base Norfolk Virginia

Posted by Princess Mononoke at 1:32 PM

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)