Milley Confirms the U.S. Military Will Have No Role in Election Disputes

Aug. 29, 2020 (EIRNS)—Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley has poured more cold water on the idea that the military might get involved in any post-election dispute in the U.S. “I believe deeply in the principle of an apolitical U.S. military,” Milley said in written responses to several questions posed by two Democratic members of the House Armed Services Committee, reported Associated Press. “In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law U.S. courts and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S. military. I foresee no role for the U.S. armed forces in this process.”

The questions were posed to Milley by Democrat Reps. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, in order to keep destabilizing talk of a coup d’état in the air during the run-up to the election. They did this by pretending to express concern about recent statements by President Donald Trump in which he said it was too early to guarantee he’d accept the election results. “These are just prudent questions to be asking given the things that the President has been saying publicly,” said Slotkin. Milley’s answers, she said, “demonstrated that the chairman recognized the military’s role in our elections is to essentially stay out; that the military’s role in the peaceful transition of power is to stay out.” They also sent a letter asking the same questions to Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.

Not mentioned by AP—and certainly by the two congresswomen—but noted by CNN and other news reports is that it is not Trump, but the Democrats who have floated the idea of a military intervention into the election, beginning with candidate Joe Biden himself. “I promise you, I’m absolutely convinced they will escort him from the White House with great dispatch,” Biden said, referring to the military, back in June during an appearance on the Daily Show. CNN also raises the open letter by two retired lieutenant colonels, John Nagl and Paul Yingling, that was published in Defense One on Aug. 11 in which they also demanded military intervention against Trump should the election be disputed. Hillary Clinton has of course urged Biden to not concede the election to Trump regardless of the outcome.

Slotkin is a former CIA analyst who also served the Obama Administration working in several positions in the policy shop at the Pentagon with her policy focus being the Middle East and particularly Iraq. Sherrill has a degree from the London School of Economics and an Arabic language certificate. Her area specialty in the Navy was Russia. In 2019, Sherill joined with Slotkin and several other Democrats with national security backgrounds in lobbying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to proceed with the fake impeachment of Trump.