Mark Milley with acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller at Arlington National Cemetery on November 11, 2020. (Credit: public domain)
On the eve of former President Donald Trump’s return to power, a new report is turning the story of the 2021 Capitol incursion on its head.
For four years, a Democratic-run “select” committee on Jan. 6, anti-Trump Republicans, and the establishment media have blamed Trump for the violence in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, but the report released Tuesday accused Trump’s acting defense secretary at the time, Christopher Miller, of defying Trump’s specific orders.
It’s the very first finding of the report, and it paints a scathing picture of Nancy Pelosi’s “select” committee — and former Rep. Liz Cheney’s role in the whole affair.
DIDN’T EXPECT THIS – WOW
NEW: J6 Report Released Today shows the Acting Secretary of Defense, Chris Miller, IGNORED AND DISMISSED President Donald Trumps January 3, 2021, Directive to use Military Assets to Ensure the Safety of everyone on January 6
* “There was no way I was… pic.twitter.com/bizN0vOtKP— Major Anthony Jones (@majorbrainpain) December 17, 2024
The report, “On the Failures and Politicization of the January 6 Select Committee,” cited transcripts from interviews conducted by the Department of Defense Inspector General into the events surrounding the incursion.
In an interview with the IG, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, a now-retired Army general, described Trump’s words at a Jan. 3, 2021 meeting to prepare for the meeting of Congress to certify the results of the still-disputed 2020 election.
Milley summed up Trump’s statement as:
“Hey, I don’t care if you use Guard, or soldiers, active-duty soldiers, do whatever you have to do. Just make sure it’s safe.”
To most Americans, that would sound like an order from a commander in chief to his subordinate, but Miller told Nancy Pelosi’s rigged Jan. 6 Committee that he chose to consider it “banter,” the report noted on page 69.
In fact, he told the IG interviewers, according to page 68 of the report: “There was absolutely — there is absolutely no way I was putting U.S. Military forces at the Capitol.”
In addition, Miller told the Jan. 6 committee that he was influenced by a commentary piece published by The Washington Post on Jan. 3, 2021, signed by all 10 living former defense secretaries, calling on Miller by name to “refrain from any political actions that undermine the results of the election or hinder the success of the new team.”
That piece, though, was “orchestrated” by Cheney, according to the report. Cheney’s father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, who also served as a defense secretary, was a co-author of the piece.
(Liz Cheney’s role in organizing the op-ed was first revealed in a May 2021 interview the liberal magazine the New Yorker conducted with Eric Edelman, a Cheney family friend and former national security adviser to Dick Cheney. Not even the left-wing “fact-checking” site Snopes has disputed it.)
The report released Tuesday also showed Miller feared being called a “Trump crony” and was sensitive to criticism on social media.
That apparently mattered more to him than carrying out the orders of the president, the report stated. (Read more: Western Journal, 12/18/2024) (Archive)