On January 8, 2021, General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, calls a secret meeting in his Pentagon office to review the process for military action, including launching nuclear weapons. 

It’s two days since President Donald Trump incited an attack on the United States Capitol Building to stop the certifying of Joe Biden as the next President of the United States. And Milley fears Trump intends to launch a full-fledged coup to remain in power.

He instructs his senior military officials to not take orders from anyone unless he is involved: “No matter what you are told, you do the procedure. You do the process. And I’m part of that procedure.” 

He looks each officer in the eye, and asks him to verbally confirm that he understands. 

Mark Milley

Fearful of Trump’s actions in his final weeks as President, Milley twice calls China’s top general, Li Zuocheng, of the People’s Liberation Army.

China is on high alert because of the chaos in the United States.

Milley assures Zuocheng there is no cause to fear an American attack, despite Trump’s provocative rhetoric against China. He promises that he will warn Zuocheng in the event of an American attack.

Donald Trump, in a September 14, 2021 interview on Newsmax, says Milley’s calls to the Chinese could amount to treason: “If it is actually true, which is hard to believe, that he would have called China and done these things and was willing to advise them of an attack, or in advance of an attack, that’s treason.   

“For him to say that I was going to attack China is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

Donald Trump

At least three Republican Senators and nine members of the House of Representatives have demanded that Milley resign or be fired. 

“He should be court-martialled if true,” Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) writes on Twitter.

“(Milley) worked to actively undermine the sitting commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces,” Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) posts on Twitter. 

Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) disagrees. He tells reporters that Democratic lawmakers “were circumspect in our language [to Milley] but many of us made it clear that we were counting on him to avoid the disaster which we knew could happen at any moment.”

Nazi defendants at Nuremberg had reacted with similar outrage upon learning that former Minister of Armaments Albert Speer had considered assassinating Adolf Hitler. Hitler had given orders for the total destruction of Germany when he realized he had lost World War II. 

“Traitor!” they shouted at Speer in the courtroom.

Former Reichmarshall Herman Goring—who had himself been condemned to death by Hitler in the closing days of the war—vowed: “If we ever get into power again, we’ll execute you for treason!” 

Herman Goring

Adding to the pressures on Milley is a blunt phone call from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: “What I’m saying to you is that if they couldn’t even stop him from an assault on the Capitol, who even knows what else he may do? And is there anybody in charge at the White House who was doing anything but kissing his fat butt all over this?  

“You know he’s crazy. He’s been crazy for a long time.”

Milley replied: “Madam Speaker, I agree with you on everything.” 

After that call, Milley:

• Orders his top service chiefs to watch everything “all the time.”
• Tells the director of the National Security Agency: “Needles up. Keep watching, scan.”
• Tells then-CIA Director Gina Haspel: “Aggressively watch everything, 360.”   

Write Bob Woodward and Robert Costa in their forthcoming book, Peril: “Milley was overseeing the mobilization of America’s national security state without the knowledge of the American people or the rest of the world.

“Some might contend that Milley had overstepped his authority and taken extraordinary power for himself, but he believed his actions were a good faith precaution to ensure there was no historic rupture in the international order, no accidental war with China or others, and no use of nuclear weapons.”

Milley has been shocked when, immediately after losing the 2020 election, Trump signs a secret military order withdrawing all America troops from Afghanistan by January 15, 2021—five days before he is scheduled to leave the White House. 

After Trump incites the January 6 attack on the Capitol, write Woodward and Costa, Milley “felt no absolute certainty that the military could control or trust Trump and believed it was his job as the senior military officer to think the unthinkable and take any and all necessary precautions.”

Nor is Milley the only high-ranking national security official who fears Trump’s vindictiveness: CIA Director Gina Haspel warns Milley, “We are on the way to a right-wing coup. The whole thing is insanity. He is acting out like a six-year-old with a tantrum.”

Haspel also worries that Trump will try to attack Iran. 

Milley intends above all to ensure a peaceful transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden on January 20: 

“We’ve got a plane with four engines and three of them are out. We’ve got no landing gear. But we’re going to land this plane and we’re going to land it safely,” he tells Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

On January 20, 2021, that plane lands safely.

On November 3, 2020, 81,255,933 Democratic voters elect former Vice President Joseph Biden the 46th President of the United States.

President Donald J. Trump, running for a second term, gets 74,196,153 votes. Biden also wins decisively in the Electoral College: 306 votes to 232 for Trump.

Facing the end of his Presidency, Trump desperately seeks to remain in power. Having “joked” about being “President-for-Life,” he’s now fighting to make that a reality.  

He spreads The Big Lie that he has been robbed by fraud. He summons his Stormtrumper followers to Washington, D.C. for a massive “Stop the Steal” rally set for January 6.

It is on that day that members of the House and Senate will meet in the United States Capitol Building to officially count the Electoral College votes. Since that total is known, it’s a foregone conclusion that Biden will be officially pronounced President-Elect.

Unwilling to accept this verdict, Trump demands that his vice president, Mike Pence, refuse to certify the election of Joe Biden as America’s next President.

When Pence refuses to break the law, Trump incites his followers in Washington, D.C., to storm the Capitol building on January 6 to stop the certification.

Donald Trump addresses his Stormtrumpers 

The Stormtrumpers march to the United States Capitol—and quickly brush aside Capitol Police.

• Members of the mob attack police with chemical agents, metal poles and lead pipes.
• At least 140 police officers suffer injuries, including concussions, broken ribs, smashed spinal discs, a lost eye.
• Many of the lawmakers’ offices are occupied and vandalized—including that of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a favorite Right-wing target.
• Lawmakers huddle under desks and behind locked doors, expecting to die any minute.
• More than three hours pass before police—using riot gear, shields and batons—retake control of the Capitol. 

And Trump? After giving his inflammatory speech, he returns to the White House—to watch his handiwork on television. He initially rebuffs requests to mobilize the National Guard.

With the United States seemingly on the brink of a Trumpian coup, General Mark Milley—Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—steps forward to save his country from a President he distrusts.

Appointed to that position by Trump in 2018, his career includes assignments with the 82nd Airborne Division, 5th Special Forces Group, Joint Readiness Training Center, Operations Staff of the Joint Staff, and Military Assistant to the Secretary of Defense.

Milley, deeply shaken by the Capitol assault, “was certain that Trump had gone into a serious mental decline in the aftermath of the election, with Trump now all but manic, screaming at officials and constructing his own alternate reality about endless election conspiracies.”

“You never know what a president’s trigger point is,” Milley tells his senior staff. 

On January 8, Milley calls a secret meeting in his Pentagon office to review the process for military action, including launching nuclear weapons.

The Pentagon

Touch Of Light, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

He instructs his senior military officials to not take orders from anyone unless he is involved: “No matter what you are told, you do the procedure. You do the process. And I’m part of that procedure.”

He looks each officer in the eye, and asks him to verbally confirm that he understands.

Fearful of Trump’s actions in his final weeks as President, Milley twice calls China’s top general, Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army to assure him that the two nations will not suddenly go to war. 

China is on high alert because of the chaos in the United States.

Milley assures him there is no cause to fear an American attack, despite Trump’s provocative rhetoric against that country. He promises Zuocheng that he will warn him in the event of an upcoming  American attack:

“General Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be okay,” Milley says in the first call on October 30, 2020. “We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you.

“If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise,” Milley reportedly says.

The second call is on January 8, 2021, to assure Zuocheng the United States isn’t on the brink of collapse.

Zuocheng isn’t easily convinced, even after Milley promises him: “We are 100 percent steady. Everything’s fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.”

According to the Woodward-Costa book, Milley calls the admiral overseeing the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, the military unit responsible for Asia and the Pacific region, and recommends postponing upcoming military exercises. 

He also asks senior officers to swear that Milley will be involved if Trump orders the launch of nuclear weapons.

On March 19, 1945, facing certain defeat, Hitler had ordered a massive “scorched-earth” campaign throughout Germany.

All German agriculture, industry, ships, communications, roads, food stuffs, mines, bridges, stores and utility plants are to be destroyed.

If implemented, it will deprive the entire German population of even the barest necessities after the war.

Now living in a bunker 50 feet below bomb-shattered Berlin, Hitler gives full vent to his most destructive impulses.

Adolf Hitler addressing boy soldiers as the Third Reich crumbles

“If the war is lost,” Hitler tells Speer, “the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable. There is no necessity to take into consideration the basis which the people will need to continue even a most primitive existence.

“On the contrary, it will be better to destroy these things ourselves, because this nation will have proved to be the weaker one and the future will belong solely to the stronger eastern nation.

“Besides, those who will remain after the battle are only the inferior ones, for the good ones have all been killed.”

His attitude is: “If I can’t rule Germany, then there won’t be a Germany.”

Speer argues in vain that there must be a future for the German people. But Hitler refuses to back down. He gives Speer 24 hours to reconsider his opposition to the order.  

The next day, Speer tells Hitler: “My Fuhrer, I stand unconditionally behind you!”

“Then all is well,” says Hitler, suddenly with tears in his eyes.

Albert Speer

“If I stand unreservedly behind you,” says Speer, “then you must entrust me rather than the Gauleiters [district Party leaders serving as provincial governors] with the implementation of your decree.”

Filled with gratitude, Hitler signs the decree Speer has thoughtfully prepared before their fateful meeting.

By doing so, Hitler unintentionally gives Speer the power to thwart his “scorched earth” decree.

Speer has been the closest thing to a friend in Hitler’s life. Trained as an architect, he joined the Nazi Party in 1931.

He met Hitler in 1933, when he presented the Fuhrer with architectural designs for the Nuremberg Rally scheduled for that year.

From then on, Speer became Hitler’s “genius architect” assigned to create buildings meant to last for a thousand years.

In 1943, Hitler appointed him Minister of Armaments, charged with revitalizing the German war effort.

Nevertheless, Speer now crisscrosses Germany, persuading military leaders and district governors to not destroy the vital facilities that would be needed after the war. 

“No other senior National Socialist could have done the job,” writes Randall Hanson, author of Disobeying Hitler: German Resistance After Valkyrie.

Risking death, Speer refuses to carry out Hitler’s “scorched earth” order. Even more important, he successfully blocks such destruction and persuades influential military and civilian leaders to disobey the order as well.

As a result, those targets slated for destruction are spared. 

Despite his later conviction for war crimes at Nuremberg, Speer never regrets his efforts to save Germany from total destruction at the hands of Adolf Hitler. 

Fast forward 75 years: On November 3, 2020, 81,255,933 Democratic voters elect former Vice President Joseph Biden the 46th President of the United States.

President Donald J. Trump, running for a second term, gets 74,196,153 votes. Biden also wins decisively in the Electoral College: 306 votes to 232 for Trump.

Facing the end of his Presidency, Trump desperately seeks to remain in power. Having “joked” about being “President-for-Life,” he’s now fighting to make that a reality.  

Unlike his 44 predecessors, he refuses to concede. For almost three weeks he denies his successor access to the resources he needs to launch a smooth transition.

Donald Trump

Even worse: Instead of showing concern for the country he claims to love, Trump is now relentlessly destroying those institutions that guarantee American freedom and safety:

• The Pentagon
• The CIA
• The FBI
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

Trump spreads The Big Lie that the election had been stolen. He repeatedly presses his vice president, Mike Pence, to refuse to certify the election results at the Capitol on January 6. When Pence refuses to break the law, Trump incites his followers to storm the building to stop the vote counting. 

His attitude clearly is: “If I can’t rule America, there won’t be an America.” 

Meanwhile, House and Senate Republicans have embraced his most outrageous lies—or refused to openly refute them—as the COVID-19 pandemic slaughters about 1,000 Americans a day.

Even Republicans who privately admit the Trump era is ending realize that 74 million hate-filled Americans voted for him in 2020. And eagerly await the coming of the next would-be Fuhrer.

They will also eagerly vote out of office any Republican who dares break with the man they worship like a cult leader.