The US senior military has devised different strategies to deal with a possible Donald Trump coup adventure after losing last year’s presidential election. The report is part of the book “I Alone Can Fix It”, excerpts from which were obtained by the American channel CNN.
The book, produced by Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, Pulitzer Prize winners and Washington Post reporters, scheduled for release next Tuesday (20), reports that members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and their leader, General Mark Milley, even discussed a collective resignation so that they would not have to carry out orders that they considered illegal, dangerous or reckless.
Assistants, according to CNN reports from the extracts obtained, the general made it clear that Trump and his entourage could even attempt a coup, but would not succeed. “You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with the guns.
The account shows how the army chief, whose role is to advise the president, prepared for a confrontation with the country’s leader, an attitude unprecedented in modern American history. Milley, according to the book, viewed Trump as a “classic authoritarian leader with nothing to lose” and saw similarities between Adolf Hitler’s rhetoric and the Republican’s false allegations of electoral fraud.
Thus, in the days preceding the invasion of the Capitol, on January 6, the general feared that there would be a “Reichstag moment”, in reference to the burning of the seat of the German Parliament, crucial for the establishment. of the Nazi dictatorship in the country.
Milley drew other parallels with Nazism. Ahead of a November march to protest the election result, the military leader said he feared the act would become the US equivalent of “brown t-shirts in the streets”, the pro-Nazi militia that has spurred Hitler’s rise to power. .
After the invasion, the general met daily with Trump’s then Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. According to a senior official’s account, the theme of the conversations was that “rain or shine” there would be a peaceful transfer of power, as happened.
The tense atmosphere continued until the inauguration on January 20. The Joint Chiefs of Staff not only discussed the attack on Congress, but also speculated on a number of scenarios, including protests in state legislatures and the possibility of Trump refusing to resign.
For the inauguration, Washington was on lockdown to prevent far-right groups from disrupting the event. Milley did not golden the pill when warning of the impending threat. “It’s like that: these guys are Nazis, they are boogaloo boys, they are Proud Boys. These are the same people we fought in World War II. Let’s put a ring of steel around this city, and the Nazis won’t enter it.
An official close to the general told CNN that Milley would not publicly address the issues raised in the work, but he also did not dispute the report that he had engaged in activities outside of his traditional role. . He also said the general did not call Trump a Nazi, but felt he had no choice but to react, given the fear of what such rhetoric might cause.
The former president, in turn, issued a lengthy statement, in which he said he had never threatened or spoken to anyone about a coup in government. “[Isso é] so ridiculous! “The Republican also said that” the election is my form of ‘hit’ “and that, if I had to do it, Milley would be the last person I would count on.
In the book, the authors, who listened to more than 140 people, most on condition of anonymity, repeatedly cite the general as someone who attempted to defend American democracy at a time of tension in the country. . However, the military is also remembered as the figure who stood alongside Trump in the operation to get the former president to take a picture in front of St. John’s Church, bible in hand, after federal forces violently dispersed peaceful protesters outside the White House.
After the episode, the military apologized and said he shouldn’t be there. Yet the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff retained the post after Biden’s inauguration. At the inauguration, Vice President Kamala Harris thanked Milley for her behind-the-scenes performance, the book says, while the general expressed his relief to the Obamas. “No one has a bigger smile than me today,” he is said to have said.