The top US general discreetly called his Chinese counterpart twice over worries that then-President Donald Trump may ignite a conflict with China as his election defeat approached and in the aftermath, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
According to the publication, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley phoned General Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army on October 30, 2020, four days before the election and again on January 8, two days after Trump supporters staged a fatal riot at the US Capitol. Milley attempted to reassure Li that the US was stable and would not strike and if an assault were to occur, he would notify his counterpart ahead of time.
The report was based on Bob Woodward and Robert Costa’s forthcoming book, ‘Peril,’ which they said was based on interviews with 200 people and will be released next week.
Trump questioned the allegation in a statement, calling it ‘fabricated.’ Milley should be prosecuted for treason, he added, if the story is accurate. ‘For the record, I never even thought of attacking China,’ Trump said. Milley’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
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Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican, called on President Joe Biden, a Democrat, to dismiss Milley immediately. ‘I do not need to tell of you the dangers posed by senior military officers leaking classified information on US military operations, but I will underscore that such subversion undermines the President’s ability to negotiate and leverage one of this nation’s instruments of national power in his interactions with foreign nations,’ Rubio stated in a letter to Biden.
When asked about the Washington Post article, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre declined to comment, directing inquiries to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Department of Defense.
Trump, a Republican, appointed Milley to the highest military job in 2018, but after losing the presidential election to Biden in November 2020, he began attacking him, as well as other appointees and former workers.
Milley was reportedly prompted to contact Beijing for the second time after a January 8 discussion with US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who asked the general about measures in place to prevent an ‘unstable president’ from launching a nuclear strike, according to the Washington Post.
‘He’s crazy. You know he’s crazy,’ Pelosi told Milley, the newspaper reported, citing a transcript of the call. ‘I agree with you on everything,’ the general said, according to the conversation transcript.
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