Some Select Committee findings

Not to contradict Mark Meadows... This is a very short blurb. The article show Miller had many preconceived ideas. Weird .

Chris Miller, the MAGA SecDef, Explains His Anger
In a memoir he recounts his military career and his eventful short tenure as Trump’s last Pentagon chief—including his bitterness about Jan. 6th.
by AMANDA CARPENTER FEBRUARY 15, 2023

Reading this memoir makes it easy to see why President Trump appointed him. Miller is a pissed-off MAGA-friendly former Green Beret eager to give the finger to the establishment, which he does with remarkable candor and callousness. So much so that he remains, even now, unapologetically unbothered by the danger that elected officials were in on January 6th.

In the opening pages of his memoir, he describes then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as being “in a state of total nuclear meltdown” and other congressional leaders “hyperventilating” in their calls for help that day. He is smug, smirking over how the speaker decried the use of National Guard troops to put down Black Lives Matters protests, but “as soon as it was her ass on the line, Pelosi had been miraculously born again as a passionate, if less than altruistic, champion of law and order.”

And that’s just the beginning. Miller’s book brims with disdain for congressional leaders. Examples:

*“I never could have imagined anything like this—getting reamed out by a histrionic Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell as they implored me to send troops to forcibly expel a rowdy band of MAGA supporters, infiltrated by a handful of provocateurs, who were traipsing through the halls of the Capitol, taking selfies, and generally making a mockery of the entire institution.”

*“I have never seen anyone—not even the greenest, pimple-faced 19-year-old Army private—panic like our nation’s elder statesmen did on January 6 and in the months that followed.”

*“Do I blame a bunch of geriatrics for acting like a bunch of geriatrics? Of course not. But do I judge them for it? You’re damned right I do. Most of all, I resent that we are ruled by a bunch of geriatrics that ruthlessly and selfishly maintain their hold on power and refuse to develop the next generation of leaders.”

All of that was just in the introduction, which partially ends on this note: “Other than my family and handful of friends, I don’t give two shits about what anybody thinks of me.”

Okay then.

But before we get to January 6th and the rest of Miller’s tumultuous but very brief tenure as acting secretary of defense, it’s worth learning what’s behind all the hostility and why he went so MAGA in the first place.
(What follows this in the review is rather gruesome with some of his accounts of events in Afghanistan and Iraq.)
***

What Miller says in the book about January 6th is consistent with his testimony to Congress: He consulted with various legal authorities ahead of the protests. There was general agreement that the National Guard would have a low profile because of the concerns about the Guard’s June deployment to Lafayette Square. Some administration officials, Miller included, worried that Trump might invoke the Insurrection Act; Miller received an assurance from White House aide John McEntee that Trump would not do this—although, McEntee added, the president did have the ability. Miller took McEntee at his word; he also believed that, as acting defense secretary, he had all the authority he needed to make his preparations for that day, and therefore he did not need to speak to Trump at all. Trump did make an offhand remark about needing “10,000 troops” in D.C. to protect demonstrators on January 6th, but Miller didn’t take this seriously as an order.

While Miller’s particular judgments, as revealed in these details, may invite disagreement, it’s important to note that his story hasn’t changed. His book and interviews fill in the picture of the thinking behind his decisions. One of the book’s achievements is to make it feel as though Miller is really offering that glimpse into his mind, repellant as it sometimes is, instead of a dull recitation of Trumpist talking points in a committee-workshopped frame.

www.thebulwark.com/chris-miller-the-maga-secdef-explains-his-anger/