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Outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley has “appropriate measures” to ensure his safety, he said this week in his first public response to shocking comments made by former President Donald Trump suggesting that the Army general is a traitor who deserves execution.

Trump last week accused Milley of going behind his back to communicate with China during the final months of the Trump administration. Milley, who was nominated to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by Trump, is set to leave his military leadership post at the end of the month. The general has stood by his communications with China and said he wishes that Trump hadn’t made his comments on Friday.

“I’ll take appropriate measures to ensure my safety and the safety of my family,” Milley said.

What former President Trump said about Gen. Milley

The public disagreements between Trump and Milley have gone on for years. A 2021 book suggested Milley was concerned Trump might attempt a power grab over the 2020 election results . Milley in 2021 refused to comment on the reports.

Trump, in his Friday Truth Social post, also targeted Milley’s role in the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. The former president  indicated that Milley’s decision to leave office was cause for celebration.

“This guy turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States,” Trump wrote on his social platform Truth Social. “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH! A war between China and the United States could have been the result of this treasonous act.”

Gen. Milley’s response to former President Trump’s comments

Milley, when asked about the post suggesting he should deserve the death penalty, stressed that he’s a soldier who’s been faithful to the Constitution for more than 44 years. He said he’s willing to die to support and defend the Constitution.

“So I’m not gonna comment directly on those, those things,” he said. “But I can tell you that this military, this soldier, me, will never turn our back on that Constitution.”

Milley also said there was nothing inappropriate or treasonous about his calls to China.

Gen. Milley’s calls to China

The chairman’s spokesperson in 2021 said the general’s calls to China were part of his regular communications with defense chiefs worldwide. The spokesperson described the calls as being crucial to reducing tensions between nations, as well as “avoiding unintended consequences or conflict.”

“His calls with the Chinese and others in October and January were in keeping with these duties and responsibilities conveying reassurance in order to maintain strategic stability,” the spokesperson said in a written statement at the time. “All calls from the chairman to his counterparts, including those reported, are staffed, coordinated and communicated with the Department of Defense and the interagency.”

Milley’s calls with his Chinese counterpart were revealed in “Peril,” a book by reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, now a CBS News correspondent. There were reports that toward the end of the Trump administration, Milley assured General Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army that the U.S. would not launch an attack against China.

Milley is set to appear in an upcoming 60 Minutes episode to discuss why he thought his calls to China were not only proper, but also necessary to avert further conflict.

Reporting by Norah O’Donnell, Keith Sharman and Roxanne Feitel.

A new book claims that General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Pentagon was so worried about a coup attempt during the 2020 presidential election that top brass drew up contingency plans to stop a power grab by former President Trump.

As the former president pushed his narrative about a stolen election, the nation’s top military officer worried Mr. Trump or his supporters could attempt a coup, Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker write in the forthcoming book, “I Alone Can Fix It.”

“They may try, but they’re not going to f—ing succeed,” Milley is quoted as saying. “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.”

On Thursday, Mr. Trump fired back at the news, calling the claims “so ridiculous.”

“If I was going to do a coup, one of the last people I would want to do it with is General Mark Milley,” he added.

The authors say Milley also drew parallels between Mr. Trump’s claims of election fraud and Adolf Hitler’s rhetoric in Nazi Germany. He told aides: “This is a Reichstag moment. …The gospel of the Führer,” according to the book.

The authors also say Milley told staffers that listening to the president was like reading George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984”: “Lies are truth. Division is unity. Evil is good.”

At an event Thursday, Milley appeared to joke about the potential impact his alleged comments could have on his own career. After commenting that he wouldn’t be at the retirement of one of the event’s attendees, he said, “I may be at my own before that, but who knows?”

The book also claims Milley was not alone in his concerns. Top Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, told Milley to assure her that Mr. Trump would not use nuclear weapons, the book said.

When asked by CBS News if he had similar conversations with Milley, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said “I’m going to keep my conversations between myself and General Milley private.”

Milley himself was criticized for appearing with Mr. Trump on June 1, 2020, after protesters were forcefully cleared from Lafayette Square in front of the White House. Milley later apologized .

In:
• Mark Milley
• Donald Trump
• coup d’etat

Kris Van Cleave

Kris Van Cleave is CBS News’ senior transportation and national correspondent based in Phoenix.

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Washington — Admiral Mike Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday that a reported episode contained in new books about former President Trump and his final months in the White House that described efforts for him to remain in power is “incredibly disturbing” and demonstrates the “chaotic environment” of the Trump administration.

Several of the recent books published about Mr. Trump, as well as an article in the New Yorker , detailed the concerns from General Mark Milley , the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that the former president would use the military to stage a coup to deny President Biden the presidency or launch a strike on Iranian interests as a way to remain in power.

In an interview with “Face the Nation,” Mullen said he understands the reporting about the final weeks of the Trump administration to be “pretty accurate,” and described the time after the presidential election as “chaotic.”

“The two threats that you talked about, the external one, and whether or not we would commence some kind of combat or conflict with Iran, and then the internal one in terms of where it might go, particularly with respect to how the military would be used by President Trump to somehow validate that the election actually was a fraud and keep the president in power, I think that’s all very accurate and obviously incredibly disturbing, literally in every respect,” he told “Face the Nation.”

• Transcript: Admiral Mike Mullen on “Face the Nation”

Mr. Trump spent the weeks after the presidential election spreading baseless claims the contest was rife with widespread voter fraud and alleging the election was rigged against him. But the former president has lost many legal battles filed in an effort to reverse the outcome of the presidential elections in several key battleground states, and federal cyber agencies declared the 2020 election to be the most secure in U.S. history.

Mr. Trump’s baseless claims about the 2020 election culminated in the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, when a mob of his supporters breached the building in an attempt to stop Congress from re-affirming Mr. Biden’s victory.

According to one book , “I Alone Can Fix It: Donald Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year,” written by a pair of Washington Post reporters, Milley compared the former president’s rhetoric to Adolf Hitler’s and had “a stomach-churning” feeling listening to Mr. Trump’s false allegations of election fraud.

Mullen said top military leaders like himself and Milley typically engage in “very tough, heated debates” with a president but carry out with a decision made by the commander-in-chief. But with regards to Mr. Trump, Milley acted correctly in pushing back, Mullen said.

“I think General Milley and others who’ve served over the last four years would tell you it’s been a very chaotic environment, very difficult to predict what was going to happen from day to day, and great concern with respect to the possibility of some of the orders that might come the military’s way,” he said. “General Milley, I thought, really did the right thing on both fronts, quite frankly. I don’t think he was alone with respect to Iran. But I think on the internal potential for a coup, really, really stood up, did the right thing, and I think made the case that he was the right officer to have in the right job at the right time in a very, very difficult, stunning and unprecedented situation.”

Mullen said that if Mr. Trump attempted to use the U.S. military to remain in power, Milley and other military leaders would have been forced to resign.

“That rubs up or actually it’s contrary to the Constitution, which is what the military serves, as opposed to the president, and could be seen as an illegal, immoral or unethical order, in which case, you know, General Milley and the rest of the military leadership, the other four stars, in my view, would be would be required to either resist or if they’re unable to resist, resign,” he said.

While Mullen not only had concerns about the military being politicized during the Trump administration, he said he continues to harbor those fears today.

“The political environment is so intense and so divided and we need to work hard to make sure the military doesn’t become part of what is politicized in this country,” he said.

In:
• Donald Trump

Washington — A federal judge has dismissed a majority of the claims filed by activists and civil liberties groups who accused the Trump administration of violating the civil rights of protesters who were forcefully removed by law enforcement from a park near the White House before then-President Trump walked to a nearby church to take a photo.

U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich said Monday the claims in the suit, which alleged that Mr. Trump and then-Attorney General William Barr had conspired to violate the rights of protesters last June, were speculative and it was premature for the court to conclude whether the actions of law enforcement officers were justified.

Friedrich dismissed the claims against Barr and other federal officials, including the acting U.S. Park Police chief, Gregory Monahan, finding there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prove there was any agreement or plan to violate the rights of the protesters. The judge also said the law gives them immunity in civil litigation.

In a 51-page decision, the judge did allow the claims against the Metropolitan Police Department and the Arlington Police Department to proceed. Their officers were involved in clearing the park.

The lawsuit stemmed from one of the most high-profile moments of the Trump presidency, when federal and local law enforcement aggressively forced a group  of largely peaceful protesters back from Lafayette Square outside of the White House firing smoke bombs and pepper balls into the crowd to disperse the group. Officers were seen shoving protesters and journalists as they pushed the crowd back.

Barr has said he met with other law enforcement officials earlier that day to review a plan to extend the security perimeter around the White House to protect federal agents after days of unrest in Washington following the death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis.

After the crowd was forcefully dispersed, Mr. Trump, followed by an entourage of his most senior aides – including Barr – along with Secret Service agents and reporters, walked over to St. John’s Church, a landmark building where every president has prayed, which had been damaged a day earlier in a protest fire.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the group Black Lives Matter D.C. and individual protesters who were present by the ACLU of D.C., the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the law firm of Arnold & Porter.

The legal director of the ACLU of the District of Columbia, Scott Michelman, said in a statement to CBS News that that the ruling “essentially gives the federal government a green light to use violence, including lethal force against demonstrators, as long as federal officials claim to be protecting national security.

“Under today’s decision, Lafayette Square is now a Constitution-free zone when it comes to the actions of federal officials. Not only is this decision a stunning rejection of our constitutional values and protestors’ First Amendment rights, but it effectively places federal officials above the law,” the statement continued.

Arthur Ago, the director of the criminal justice project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said in a statement that the ruling set an “extremely dangerous precedent” and that former officials like Barr were “getting off scot-free.”

“We will always stand up for the rights of those peacefully demonstrating for racial justice, and this ruling sends the wrong message for police accountability efforts at a time when it is needed the most,” Ago said.

In:
• William Barr
• Black Lives Matter
• Donald Trump
• American Civil Liberties Union