Gen. Mark Milley feared Trump would try to use military to stay in office after 2020: report

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley feared former President Donald Trump would try to use the military to stay in power after his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results failed, according to a Monday report.

While Milley played a relatively quiet role in the early years of Trump’s presidency, she hit a crossroads in 2018 when she accompanied Trump on his infamous Lafayette Square march outside the White House, the New Yorker reported.

Protesters had been turned away from Trump’s display, and Milley would later excuse himself from attending, saying his presence gave the impression that the military was operating against Trump’s opponents.

“As many of you saw, the result of my photograph in Lafayette Square last week. This sparked a national debate about the role of the military in civil society,” Milley said at the time. “I shouldn’t have been there. My presence at that time and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics.”

“As a uniformed officer, it was a mistake that I have learned from, and I sincerely hope that we can all learn from it,” he added.

Milley drafted a resignation letter after the incident, but decided not to send it to Trump.

“F*** this shit, I’ll just fight him,” he told his staff. “If they want to court-martial me, or put me in jail, let them do it. But I’ll fight from the inside.”

MILLEY LEADS REVIEW OF US, CHINA MILITARY CONTACTS Amid WARNING, BEIJING POSES NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark Milley, speaks to reporters after a virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at the Pentagon, Monday, May 23, 2022, in Washington.
((AP Photo/Alex Brandon))

As the 2020 election approached, Milley became increasingly concerned that Trump might start a foreign war and use the military to assert authority on the home front.

Milley, “envisioned a declaration of martial law or a presidential invocation of the Insurrection Act,” according to the New Yorker.

In late November 2020, Milley focused solely on securing a transfer of power to then-President-elect Joe Biden.

“Our job is to land this plane safely and have a peaceful transfer of power on January 20th,” Milley told staff at the time. “This is our obligation to this nation.”

When Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, Milley told the New Yorker that it was ultimately Vice President Mike Pence who ordered the National Guard to respond.

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Trump would later claim that he had advised the deployment of 10,000 National Guard troops to the Capitol in the days leading up to the rally, but congressional leaders opposed the idea.