WASHINGTON (AP) — Fearful of Donald Trump’s actions in his final weeks as president, the United States’ top military officer twice assured his Chinese counterpart that the two nations would not go to war, according to a forthcoming book.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army that the United States would not strike. One call took place on Oct. 30, 2020, four days before the election that defeated Trump. The second call was on Jan. 8, 2021, just two days after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of the outgoing chief executive.
Milley went so far as to promise Li that he would warn his counterpart in the event of a U.S. attack, according to the book “Peril,” written by Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.
“General Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be okay,” Milley told him in the first call, according to the book. “We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you.”
“If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise,” Milley reportedly said.
The Associated Press obtained a copy of the book. Details from the book, which is set to be released next week, were first reported by The Washington Post on Tuesday.
An update: the level of anger at Gen. Milley on Capitol Hill is immeasurable. There is a strong belief he leaked this story himself. Veterans on Capitol Hill are discussing next actions. The agreed opinion is he must go, but that media sycophants will attempt to protect him.
— Ben Domenech (@bdomenech) September 14, 2021
The second call was meant to placate Chinese fears about the events of Jan. 6. But the book reports that Li wasn’t as easily assuaged, even after Milley promised him: “We are 100 percent steady. Everything’s fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.”
Milley believed the president suffered a mental decline after the election, agreeing with a view shared by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a phone call they had Jan. 8, according to officials.
Pelosi had previously said she spoke to Milley that day about “available precautions” to prevent Trump from initiating military action or ordering a nuclear launch, and she told colleagues she was given unspecified assurances that there were longstanding safeguards in place.
Milley, according to the book, called the admiral overseeing the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, the military unit responsible for Asia and the Pacific region, and recommended postponing upcoming military exercises. He also asked senior officers to swear an “oath” that Milley had to be involved if Trump gave an order to launch nuclear weapons, according to the book.
Former President Donald Trump reacts to new reports about General Mark Milley: "If it is actually true…that's treason." https://t.co/VlT7z8drtO pic.twitter.com/1PY0ZjrmHW
— Newsmax (@newsmax) September 14, 2021
Milley was appointed by Trump in 2018 and later drew the president’s wrath when he expressed regret for participating in a June 2020 photo op with Trump after federal law enforcement cleared a park near the White House of peaceful protesters so Trump could stand at a nearby damaged church.
Related Story: Gen. Mark Milley Held Secret Pentagon Meeting, Told Staff Not To Take Orders From President Donald Trump Regarding Nuclear Weapons
In response to the book, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., sent President Joe Biden a letter Tuesday urging him to fire Milley, saying the general worked to “actively undermine the sitting Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces and contemplated a treasonous leak of classified information to the Chinese Communist Party in advance of a potential armed conflict with the People’s Republic of China (PRC).”
Requests for comment from Milley were not immediately returned. Milley’s second warning to Beijing came after Trump had fired Secretary of Defense Mike Esper and filled several top positions with interim officeholders loyal to him.
GOPUSA Editor’s Note: Please keep in mind that this is a mainstream media story. The source of the story is in the dateline. We publish it for the purpose of informing our readers and providing an opportunity to discuss it. What is GOPUSA? Read our About Us page to find out.
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Associated Press writers Hillel Italie in New York and Lisa Mascaro contributed reporting.
© 2021 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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This content is published through a licensing agreement with Acquire Media using its NewsEdge technology.
Clear case of sedition but when you are on the side of pure evil and pure evil occupies our government nothing is too evil or heinous when it is kept concealed by the perpetrator.
TRUMP should have fired him, when he had the chance.
“Milley believed the president suffered a mental decline after the election, agreeing with a view shared by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a phone call they had Jan. 8, according to officials.”
Why is this guy still around? Everything that comes out about him is worse than what was already out there.
firing squad STAT
Milley went so far as to promise Li that he would warn his counterpart in the event of a U.S. attack
Once upon a time this was considered Treason.
Milley should be tried for treason, period! Sadly we all know that the liberal democrats will protect him. It’s a sad day in this country when a so called military ” leader ” goes behind his commander in chief’s back to contact, and make promises, to one of our country’s enemies. Liberal politics is destroying these United States.
If the same caliber of patriots ran the military today as did during WWII when my father served and we still knew how to destroy, not socially redeem the enemy, I guarantee you that traitors like Milley would never see the light of day again from a prison cell or a firing squad. But these days the ranks of all sectors of government are so infiltrated with socialist planted traitors, true patriots have to wear flack jackets on their backs to keep the knives from penetrating the now thin veneer of unprotected patriotism that lives only in unfulfilled promises of deception, used to lull THE PEOPLE into a false sense of security, issued forth in their false promised American pride that comes right before the fall.
Its amusing how , ” The leftists, Like Democrats, Nancy Pelosi, And Chuck Schumer, and Joe Biden are quick. To identify a mental impairment in Republican President, Donald Trump when he was president but are unable or unwilling to recognize this same mental condition in their president or realize the danger that having a ” democrat Commander- In- Chief isn’t less a danger to our Nation than Republican Donald Trump, strange, how a mental impairment of a Commander- In – Chief isn’t so much a. Danger to the Nation if he happens to be a ” Democcrat, ” Commander – In – Chief. “
That’s because, THEY THEMSELVES, are mental.. TDS and their rabid libtardism, has REALLY rotted their brain.
IT still should be seen as treason!
If there was any real justice in this country General Milley Vanilli would be facing a firing squad within the hour. And I’d be the first in line to volunteer for the pleasure of sending him to meet his father the devil.
I hope Gen. Milley thinks every day about whether he pissed off any of the men that are or were Seal snipers.
YouMilleyAting will never show up where he could be fragged.
Real justice, seems to have gotten buried.. So deep down, i fear it will never ever be uncovered.
How did the heroic Biden sycophant find time away from his priorities of homo-sexual and gender-freak infusion of the military to contact Biden’s China puppeteers? Truly an amazing man. No wonder the enemies (both foreign and domestic) of the United States admire this woke-an-izer in uniform.
What is just as bad if not not worse than Milley’s treason is the treason of Woodward and Costa. Aren’t they supposed to be reporters? Why didn’t these ace reporters shout far and wide in the WAPO and NYT and on all the TV pundit shows about Milley’s treasonous actrs against the USA when they got theirs hands on the proof to make these allegations??? That takes quite a while before a book ever gets vetted, proofed, printed and distributed, so when did these money-grubbers really have the story? Or maybe it is fake like everything else?
YouMilleyAting served as a Chinese spy, at the least. Woodward and Costa were only interested in providing information, true or false, for money. Timeliness would have reduced their profit.
Because we don’t have journalist – we have people who want to make money and to hell with the country
I’m looking forward to his court martial, and then his firing squad. This is treason, if he was an enlisted man, he’d already be in the brig.
Hell will freeze over, before ANYONE gets court martialed..
” Its dangerous to be Right when those in Authority Are Wrong . ” A Democrat Commander- In- Chief, According to the ” Liz Chenies, ” Never Trumpers, ” could never be a threat like A Republican Commander- In- Chief was .
Considering just how much praise the delusional, dishonest, divisive, destructive, disgusting, and dishonorable Biden-Harris Administration has heaped upon the brutal Taliban terrorists that now control Afghanistan as a direct result of the administration’s poorly planned and chaotically executed U.S. military withdrawal from the war-torn nation in a desperate attempt to end the nearly twenty-year war, cooperating with our nation’s enemies like the Taliban, Communist China, and the Islamic Republic of Iran is a hallmark of the administration so I would not at all be surprised if the shocking claim that a Biden loyalist like General Milley promised to give the Communist Chinese Military advanced warning of a U.S. attack turns out to be true. Of course, the administration and its lackeys in the leftist corporate media can be expected to rally around the general and find a way to bury the story by issuing an flurry of news releases on the January 6th insurrection, the pandemic, climate change, domestic terrorism, systemic racism and anything else that keeps Milley’s story out of the national spotlight. Even if it can eventually be proven that Milley did commit this treasonous act, the left is so effective at shielding its miscreants from suffering the negative consequences of their misdeeds that I expect Milley will be allowed to quietly retire and keep his extremely generous military pension.
The democrat Marxist of America say, Don’ Look here, look there no, don’t look there and so the democrat elite hope that the voting public won’t recognize the democrats trickery for what it is, a deception!, Being played by the democrat hierarchy on the America citizens.
The quote i used in my comments above , Author unknown, Sotheseedsofliberty2 .
traitor period dot end of story.
This man committed treason. On ABC news last night, they said ,he got all the top Brass to look him in the eye and agree to follow his orders. That’s a coup and treason , because they all agreed. He got others involved. Then he calls Nancy and tells her steps have been taken. So that’s means she knew and in my opinion is a Accessory to treason. Anybody else who would have gotten a email like that would ask what steps ? She didn’t , that’s means she knew what it meant. All top military leaders and Nancy need to be charged with treason.
Not just an accessory, but a CO CONSPIRATOR!
I know I am going to catch #ell for this, but where is the proof? Wouldn’t trust Woodward as far as I could throw him. I have no problem with this being true, if it actually is, but where is the proof. Even President Trump said he doubts it. If they can come up with good solid evidence, which could stand up in court, I would volunteer for the firing squad, bring my own rifle, and provide all the ammo. I really can’t stand that woke piece of ****, but I always want proof before I light my torch.
No way to know yet if this is true or not. Milley is a liar. Woodward is a liar. Seems like most of the Biden officials lie often.
Some things in this article have a ring of truth. I have little doubt that Nancy Pelosi would stir up anything she could with anyone she could to harm Trump. If this story is true it sounds like she colluded with Milley to commit treason.
Milley is woke. He has so much ego. He definitely puts politics before the military. It’s not hard to see him as someone who thinks he can interfere like this and be the big cheese. He just screwed up Afghanistan royally so maybe he thinks this tale will make him a hero to Biden’s radical base and take the focus off Afghanistan which they are all desperate to do.
All things considered, I tend to think it’s mostly true and not just a figment of Woodward’s imagination. If true, he should be tried, convicted and hung. I won’t hold my breath. Joe has already defended him.
How many rifles in a proper salute this man deserves? Seven or twenty-one?
He’s apparently guilty of nothing less than treason.
There is something weird going on here. It’s hard for me to believe that a general that far up in the command could possibly be this stupid. If indeed he really did do what Woodward has said he should be in federal prison (or an asylum) within the month. It’s so obvious that it seems like a set up of some kind if it weren’t for the fact that Woodward (the leftist) is the source. I really don’t know how Biden cannot fire this moron if there is any truth to this crazyness.
WHAT got me, is how Tom Cotton, normally a straight shooter in the GOP, seem to COVER FOR HIM this afternoon…
I hope this revelation will bring to light at long last the coup that Hussein Bozo has been running for twelve years. You can bet Milk Toast Milley was taking orders from the American hating traitor Obozo. Remember the play book is to accuse you for what they’re actually doing. This isn’t rocket science.
I doubt a damn thing will happen about that coup…
I believe that if Milley had been a Republican his fate would have been assured by the Joe Biden Administration long ago! The one thing that The democrat party won’t tolerate is disloyality.