DEFENSE
'It just doesn't seem right': Pentagon officials
on edge over military leaders' dealings with Trump
For years, top military leadership has tried to
minimize the perception that the armed forces are being used by the president
for political purposes.
By LARA
SELIGMAN and BRYAN BENDER
06/02/2020
08:56 PM EDT
Updated:
06/02/2020 11:03 PM EDT
The optics
of the past 72 hours are putting people inside the halls of the Pentagon on
edge as images of U.S. troops on the streets of the nation’s capital dominate
airwaves across the globe, and as the top brass is increasingly viewed as
mixing politics and the military.
Defense
Department officials say they are increasingly uncomfortable with the more
prominent role the U.S. military is playing in tamping down violent protests
breaking out all over the U.S., and the growing tendency of the president to
call on the troops for domestic missions ranging from border security to law
enforcement.
“The
decision to use active military forces in crowd control in the United States
should only be made as a last resort,” said Mick Mulroy, former deputy
assistant secretary of defense under President Donald Trump. “Active Army and
Marine Corps units are trained to fight our nation’s enemies, not their fellow
Americans. American cities are not battlefields.”
The anxiety
hit a high point on Monday, when word leaked out that Defense Secretary Mark
Esper referred to cities undergoing protests as a "battlespace," and
as Esper and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley walked with Trump across the
street from the White House after protesters were cleared from Lafayette Square
in advance of a staged photo op in front of St. John's Episcopal Church.
For years, top military leadership has tried to
minimize the perception that the armed forces are being used by the president
for political purposes. Today, the nation is confronting the prospect of civil
strife that rivals the racial unrest of the late 1960s in scale, even as
civil-military tensions reach levels not seen since the use of National Guard
units to respond to anti-Vietnam protests at Kent State university.
The
Pentagon sought to limit the role of the active-duty military in carrying out
Trump’s desire to use soldiers to police the U.S.-Mexican border. It also
successfully pushed back on Trump’s request to hold a large-scale military
parade on July 4 last year, instead putting on a muted display of military
hardware.
The
president is trumpeting his powers as commander in chief as the nation
confronts the dual crises of civil unrest over racial injustice and a public
health emergency. On Monday, he said he was putting Milley, the nation’s top
military officer, “in charge” of restoring order and threatened to invoke the
Insurrection Act, an 1807 law that gives him the authority to deploy federal
troops to respond to domestic disorder.
Esper and
Milley appear to have embraced their new roles, unlike Trump’s first Defense
Secretary Jim Mattis, who resigned in protest of the decision to pull troops
out of Syria, and former Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, who mostly remained in
the shadows and was rarely photographed in public.
The
Pentagon was “taken aback” by the president’s comments putting Milley in
charge, according to one senior defense official.
“There is
growing concern that this is not good for the role of the military going
forward,” the official said. “Now you’ve injected the military into a moment in
a political way. It just doesn’t seem right.”
This
account is based on interviews with half a dozen defense officials as well as
former officials and outside experts, many of whom spoke on condition of
anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic. Multiple Pentagon spokespeople declined
to comment on the record.
The scene
erupted Monday night after police cleared protesters from Lafayette Square so
that Trump could walk from the White House to the church so he could be
photographed holding a Bible. Esper and Milley walked with Trump, and Esper
posed for the photo as well.
But despite
their appearance beside their boss on live television moments after he
threatened to send active-duty troops into the heartland to tamp down on
violent protests, some defense officials attempted to distance Esper and Milley
from Trump’s comments.
The two did
not know that local law enforcement would clear the area of demonstrators, said
a second senior defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss
a sensitive topic.
Esper and
Milley were actually on their way to the FBI’s Washington Field Office on
Monday night when they were asked to instead head to the White House to update
the president on the protest response, according to the two defense officials.
“While they
were there as that meeting concluded, the president indicated an interest in
viewing the troops that were outside, and the secretary and chairman went with
him,” the second senior defense official said.
Esper later
told NBC News that he also believed they would survey the damage in the area.
"I
thought I was going to do two things: to see some damage and to talk to the
troops," Esper said. "I didn't know where I was going."
After the
photo, Milley was later filmed walking through the streets in his combat
fatigues — a move that has drawn harsh criticism.
“It serves
no useful purpose, and perpetuates the message that the military is being put
in charge of the overall response; that this is a military, rather than a
social or political problem to solve,” said Lindsay Cohn, an associate
professor at the Naval War College specializing in civil-military relations.
Another
defense official defended the chairman’s choice of uniform, saying he wears his
fatigues often in the Pentagon. It didn’t make sense to go back to the Pentagon
to change when he was already in the city, the official said.
A fourth
defense official who was not authorized to speak publicly said there has been a
significant level of consternation among Pentagon officials over the past day
that Milley wasn’t more attuned to how his presence could send the wrong
message — and muddle the military’s hard-fought reputation as being above the
political fray.
“His
predecessor did a much better job of staying out of the line of fire,” said the
official, referring to Dunford, who stepped down as chairman last year. “Milley
went right into the line of fire.”
James
Miller, a former Pentagon official and member of the Defense Science Board,
resigned from the advisory group on Tuesday over Esper's handling of the
incident at the church.
"President
Trump’s actions Monday night violated his oath to 'take care that the laws be
faithfully executed,' as well as the First Amendment 'right of the people
peaceably to assemble,'" Miller wrote in a letter to Esper and then shared
with The Washington Post. "You may not have been able to stop President
Trump from directing this appalling use of force, but you could have chosen to
oppose it. Instead, you visibly supported it.'"
Rep. Adam
Smith of Washington, the Democratic chair of the Armed Services Committee, came
to Milley’s defense on Monday, saying that the general was trying to do the
right thing and he “was out there to try to make sure that the Guard troops
acted appropriately. ... I think the message that he was trying to deliver ...
was appropriate."
Nevertheless,
“I think he may have misread slightly the optics of the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff in uniform walking around the nation's capital. ... I do not
believe that it was his intent to send that message," Smith told
reporters.
But coming
on top of Esper’s tough rhetoric earlier in the day and the dispersal of
peaceful protesters outside the White House, Milley’s presence was damaging, he
acknowledged.
“The optics
of him being in uniform out there might not have been so bad if we didn't have
the president out there talking about going to war with the country and using
the military and using overwhelming force and Secretary Esper talking about the
need to occupy the battlespace,” Smith said. “If you take all of that rhetoric
out of the equation, then ... Chairman Milley walking around is perhaps a
different message. But yes, in uniform out there, a little bit of a
problem."
Smith on
Tuesday called on Esper and Milley to testify before the House Armed Services
Committee next week.
Officials
and experts acknowledge that the president put Milley in a tough position with
his remarks on Monday when he said the general was “in charge” of the protest
response — despite the fact that the nation’s top military officer is not in
the chain of command. But they criticized Milley for embracing his new role all
too willingly.
Milley
“ought to be a quiet advocate for Esper to be the public face of things, if the
president insists on putting the DoD in charge," Cohn said. “I acknowledge
that Milley is in a difficult position because the president has put him there
— I don't advocate for Milley to make a big show out of anything.”
Retired
Maj. Gen. Charles Dunlap, the former deputy judge advocate general in the Air
Force, said Milley could lead the effort to manage the protests “in some
administrative or managerial sense.” But “federal law nevertheless stipulates
that the chairman ‘may not exercise military command over the Joint Chiefs of
Staff or any of the armed forces,’” he said in an email.
Anything
beyond that is “something that conceptually could undermine civilian control of
the military that the Constitution centers on the President as
commander-in-chief,” he said.
One former
defense official said former colleagues are concerned that Milley is “a
perpetual hype man."
“Give him
an idea and he will be the loudest, strongest, most extreme advocate of it with
bells on,” the former official said. “This has advantages and disadvantages.
You’re seeing the disadvantages today.”
The first
senior defense official noted that Milley is now in a tricky spot: If officials
succeed in tamping down the unrest, the chairman will get the credit. But if
the protests continue unabated, the president could sour on him.
But a
Republican congressional staffer and combat veteran, who asked for anonymity to
speak freely, said the damage may already be done.
Esper and
Milley “have squandered the moral legitimacy of a nearly 245-year-old
institution in a single farcical late spring promenade,” the staffer said.
“They have no honor and to hell with them both."
Connor
O’Brien and Betsy Woodruff Swan contributed to this report.
LETTER FROM
WASHINGTON
Trump Wants to Turn D.C. Into a Battleground. He
May Regret It.
In inviting the spotlight to shine on Washington,
Trump is sure to give media attention to local officials eager to undercut the
exact narrative he’s trying to sell.
By HARRY
JAFFE
06/02/2020
07:04 PM EDT
Harry Jaffe
is an editor at large at Washingtonian magazine and co-author of Dream City:
Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington, D.C, with Tom Sherwood.
President
Donald Trump never got his wish to stage a July 4th military march down
Pennsylvania Avenue in the heart of downtown Washington. But nights of street
protests in the nation’s capital in reaction to the killing of George Floyd by
Minneapolis police have provided Trump another opportunity to use the District
of Columbia as the backdrop for his reality-TV approach to governing.
As
protesters peacefully gathered Monday evening in front of St. John’s Episcopal
Church, steps from Lafayette Square in view of the White House, Trump ordered
federal troops to clear out protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets so he
could stage a photo op. He stood in front of the historic church holding a
Bible aloft, leading Michael Curry, the bishop who presides over the Episcopal
denomination, to accuse him of using “a church building and the Holy Bible for
partisan political purposes.”
He meant it
as criticism, but that was precisely President Trump’s goal: to use the
nation’s capital and its landmarks as a setting for the political drama of the
day, with him as the main character. The nation’s capital, especially in a
moment of chaos, provides the ideal foil for his supporters, who see the
District as the home of the insiders and “deep state” bureaucrats they elected
Trump to defeat.
But using
D.C. as a stage might not end well for this president. In inviting the
spotlight to shine on Washington, Trump is also elevating the profiles of local
politicians who’ve already waded into the fight against him, and are all too
eager to use the attention to finish it. By highlighting the president’s management
of the crisis, they might very well undercut the exact narrative the president
tried to sell in the St. John’s Church stunt: that he is in control.
Even as the
president admonished state and local officials on Monday to “dominate” the
protesters, Washington, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine told Politico he
would “not seek to prosecute” demonstrators arrested for violating the
District’s 7:00 p.m. curfew, though he would pursue cases about “assaultive
conduct and destruction of property.”
“The president
has sought to use the District of Columbia as a prop to show how to stomp out
lawful protest, using the full authority of the federal government,” said
Racine. “Outrageous.”
Racine has
spent much of the past few years bringing lawsuits against Trump, accusing the
president of corruptly benefiting from profits derived from the Trump
International Hotel in downtown Washington, a few blocks from the White House.
Joining with Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh, Racine sued Trump for
violating the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause — a case, which, after pending
in the courts for months, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled
could go forward. It’s likely headed to the Supreme Court. “We look forward to
pressing ahead,” Racine said.
Nor can the
president expect any support from D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham, who has
spent more than three decades policing in D.C. He’s been totally in line with
Bowser, and he’s also built strong working relationships with federal law
enforcement agencies like the FBI, DEA, Park Police and Secret Service — D.C.’s
“federal partners” in law enforcement. And while Trump and U.S. Attorney
General William Barr have begun negotiating with District officials over
federalizing local police and arming National Guard troops with long rifles,
Newsham has objected to both proposals.
Trump, of
course, has depicted his tear-gassing of the White House protesters and general
handling of the crisis as a victory. “D.C. had no problems last night,” he
tweeted Tuesday morning. “Many arrests. Great job done by all. Overwhelming
force. Domination.” In fact, skirmishes between police and protesters continued
all night and into Tuesday. “The city is a war zone,” said Jessica Fanzo, a
Johns Hopkins University professor whose home at 15th and Swann Streets, N.W.,
was the scene of conflicts through the night.
Outrageous
or not, the president could have the authority under D.C. law to commandeer the
local police. He threatened on Monday to deploy the military to put down
protests in cities across the country. But in the District, the president can
invoke a never-used “Emergency control of police”: Since the District is a
federal enclave, under control of Congress and the White House, the law states
the president may “direct the Mayor” to provide “services of the Metropolitan
police force for federal purposes.”
AG Racine
conferred with Bowser Monday on how to respond if Trump invokes the law and
advised her it gave the president “limited” authority. As of Tuesday, federal
officials had floated the idea of invoking the law, but Trump had not made the
call.
For Racine,
that’s a line in the sand. “I would regard that as an affront to even our
limited home rule and the safety of the District of Columbia,” Bowser told
reporters.
If Trump
were to call in military troops to quell protests in D.C., it would not be the
first time a president had taken such an action. In April 1968, after the
assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., President Lyndon Johnson called in
soldiers to quiet rioting, looting and arson that burned miles of D.C. streets,
stopping just 10 blocks from the White House. But LBJ brought in troops
reluctantly, in part because he cared for the District. He had worked in the
city for decades as a congressman and senator before becoming president, and as
president, he put the District on course for political independence under Home
Rule, which he considered part of his drive for civil rights.
Before
Trump came to town, most presidents had developed some respect and affinity for
the city around 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Richard Nixon dined out at local
restaurants, presided over a massive redevelopment of Pennsylvania Avenue, and
famously made an impromptu late-night visit to the Lincoln Memorial to meet
protesters who opposed the Vietnam War. Jimmy Carter sent his daughter, Amy, to
D.C. public schools. Laura Bush took her advocacy of literacy by reading books
to D.C. students. The Obamas were comfortable in and around the District,
dining at swanky restaurants, shopping at local bookstores, and taking classes
at Soul Cycle.
Donald J.
Trump has never attempted to establish any relationship with the nation’s
capital. In his first three years, he has never visited a D.C. neighborhood
establishment. He ventures to his Trump Hotel to dine with prominent
supporters, and to Capitol Hill to meet with House or Senate members. The lack
of any relationship, personal or political, with the District’s residents
exacerbates the current conflict over protesting and policing.
“The lesson
so far is you cannot rely on the federal government under President Trump to
treat people with the respect they deserve,” Racine said. “He calls for
dominance when our current situation calls for even more restraint between
people who are protesting and the people protecting our city.”
Should
President Trump become desperate for another show of personal force, his next
act with D.C. as backdrop could be essentially deputizing the Metropolitan
Police Department or calling in federal troops. If that happens, he may well
get his military march down Pennsylvania Avenue — if for no other reason than
to inspect his troops.
CORRECTION:
An earlier version of this article misspelled Jessica Fanzo’s surname. It
is Fanzo, not Fonzo.
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