Trump drops security detail for another perceived enemy
In one of his first acts since narrowly being confirmed by the Senate this past Friday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has informed retired Gen. Mark Milley that he will lose his security detail and security clearance.
The barely competent Cabinet appointee will also direct the inspector general to determine whether Milley should be stripped of a star in retirement for undermining the “chain of command” during Donald Trump’s first presidency, according to the Associated Press and Fox News.
This is just the latest stop on Trump’s revenge tour.
Last week, Trump pulled federal security protection for former top U.S. health official Dr. Anthony Fauci. Before that, he had yanked the security details from his former national security adviser John Bolton, former State Department official Brian Hook, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
When asked why Trump was doing this, a senior administration official told Fox News, “There is a new era of accountability in the Defense Department under President Trump’s leadership—and that’s exactly what the American people expect.”
During his first term, Trump tapped Milley to head the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a position that Milley held for a four-year term, from 2019 to 2023. But he invoked the president’s ire after he resisted Trump’s demands to “crack skulls” and “beat the fuck out” of protestors in Washington, D.C., in the wake of the 2020 police murder of George Floyd. Milley also suggested that Trump was a “wannabe dictator.” And journalist Bob Woodward wrote in his book “War” that Milley called Trump “a fascist to the core.”
Trump seemingly hasn’t forgiven Milley. The president once accused the retired general of treason for a phone call Milley held with a top Chinese military official in 2020. While Milley testified that the call was simply part of his job, Trump described them as “an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”
More recently, within hours of Trump being sworn into office this month, a portrait of Milley was removed from the Pentagon.
The president’s pettiness didn’t end there. Fox News reported that Pentagon officials will remove a second portrait of Milley housed there, meaning there will be no signs of the former federal official inside the building.
These acts prove just how spiteful Trump is. Each person from whom he has stripped security detail is someone who has publicly criticized him. His actions might have consequences, though, especially since at least three people whose details were yanked, including Milley, have received threats from foreign adversaries. Iran vowed “severe revenge” for the 2020 killing of Qassem Soleimani, which was ordered by Trump in his first term.
Similar to Fauci, though, Milley might be spared from more of Trump’s retaliation. Milley and Fauci were among those whom former President Joe Biden preemptively pardoned on his last day in office, in case Trump tried to take revenge on him.
Milley expressed gratitude for Biden’s pardon. Biden said that Milley and others “do not deserve to be the targets of unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions.”
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