Pentagon Revokes Gen. Milley’s Security Clearance and Detail; Rank May Be on the Chopping Block
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Pentagon Revokes Gen. Milley’s Security Clearance and Detail; Rank May Be on the Chopping Block

Pentagon Revokes Gen. Milley’s Security Clearance and Detail; Rank May Be on the Chopping Block

Hegseth has also ordered the Pentagon’s inspector general to investigate Milley’s actions to determine if a demotion is warranted. … In other words, he may ultimately be stripped of his fourth star.

Former President Joe Biden issued retired Gen. Mark Milley a preemptive pardon for a reason. At the very least, his actions during his tenure as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff warranted a thorough investigation – an avenue Biden hoped his sweeping pardon would effectively close. As it turns out, there is more than one way to skin a cat.

On Tuesday night, the Pentagon announced that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth revoked Milley’s security clearance and personal security detail. Additionally, he has ordered the Pentagon’s inspector general to investigate Milley’s actions to determine if a demotion is in order.

According to Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot, the inspector general review will consist of “an inquiry into the facts and circumstances surrounding Gen. Milley’s conduct so that the Secretary may determine whether it is appropriate to reopen his military grade review determination.” In other words, Milley may ultimately be stripped of his fourth star.

“The Secretary informed General Milley today that he is revoking the authorization for his security detail and suspending his security clearance as well,” Ullyot said.

You may recall that shortly after President Trump took his oath of office last week, a portrait of Milley that had been unveiled only ten days earlier inside the Pentagon, was removed. Sources told Fox News on Tuesday that a second portrait of Milley, one that hangs in “the Army’s Marshall Corridor on the third floor honoring his service as chief-of-staff of the Army,” would also be removed perhaps “as soon as tonight.”

So why do Trump administration officials so revile the retired general? Sources told Fox that it stemmed from his alleged actions to “undermine the chain of command” during Trump’s first term.

Another source told Fox, “There is a new era of accountability in the Defense Department under President Trump’s leadership—and that’s exactly what the American people expect.”

Milley was especially candid in his conversations with journalist Bob Woodward, who has recounted some of them in his books. In his latest book, “War,” conveniently released three weeks ahead of the 2024 election, Woodward alleged that, in March 2023, Milley told him Trump was “fascist to the core.”

According to the Independent, Milley told Woodward, “He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country.”

In an earlier book, Woodward claimed Milley “shared with me his worries about Trump’s mental stability and control of nuclear weapons.”

In another Woodward book, “Peril,” coauthored by Robert Costa, we learned Milley had contacted his Chinese counterpart twice in the waning months of the Trump administration to report that “the U.S. military had no plans to strike China in a bid to avert tensions between nuclear-armed countries.”

Milley also allegedly informed his counterpart that he would alert him if Trump were to plan any surprise attacks. If true, this act raises serious concerns, ranging from disloyalty to potential treason, and demands a full investigation.

Milley was also a source for a 2022 book written by New Yorker writer Susan Glasser titled, “The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021.” He revealed that he was so humiliated by Trump on one occasion that he wrote a letter of resignation, which he obviously never sent.

After Black Lives Matter activists attempted to burn down St. John’s Church in Washington, D.C.’s Lafayette Square in June 2020, Trump memorably walked to the site with several officials, including Milley, and held up a Bible in a widely publicized photo-op.

The media was highly critical of the event, alleging that BLM protesters had been “violently” cleared from Lafayette Square by the U.S. Park Police for the sole purpose of the photo-op. One year later, a government report revealed the park had been cleared for fence installation following property damage and officer injuries during the riots.

Anyway, because military members are expected to remain apolitical and he had participated in a “political event,” Milley was filled with remorse. And during a pre-recorded commencement address to the graduating class of the National Defense University, Milley apologized. He said, “I should never have been there.”

And he proceeded to pen his missive to Trump. It is a boastful, four-paragraph letter written by a disgruntled subordinate with little sense of self-awareness. He tells the president he’s done some “deep soul-searching” and “can no longer faithfully support and execute your orders.” The letter can be viewed here.

Hence, Milley is persona non grata at the Pentagon. Biden may have placed Milley beyond the reach of the law, but Hegseth has found another way to retaliate. And it’s gotta hurt.


Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board at The Sixteenth Council, a London think tank. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.

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Comments

Loose only one star?

No!

Reduce him to a private and take away his pension!

    TargaGTS in reply to ParkRidgeIL. | January 29, 2025 at 3:22 pm

    Not possible, unfortunately. Because of the way the statutory law works, officers can only be reduced to their permanent rank, which is generally the last rank they held before their current grade. Essentially, if demoted – which for officers can only happen administratively through something called a reduction board – they’ll be reduced to their prior grade which for Milley would be Lieutenant General. Officers cannot be demoted by court-martial whereas someone holding the highest enlisted rank could be demoted to private with a conviction at a general court-martial. With respect to his pension, the only way to lose a pension as a retired service member is by conviction at court-martial for a very serious crime. Even then, his spouse would still likely receive her ‘share’ of the pension.

      maxmillion in reply to TargaGTS. | January 29, 2025 at 3:35 pm

      Recall him.

      gonzotx in reply to TargaGTS. | January 29, 2025 at 4:32 pm

      IS treason a serious crime enough?

        TargaGTS in reply to gonzotx. | January 30, 2025 at 8:20 am

        It is. But, he’s been pardoned. It’s now impossible to try him at court-martial. It may be possible to reduce his rank because rank reduction for an officer is done administratively, not criminally.

      CommoChief in reply to TargaGTS. | January 29, 2025 at 5:14 pm

      Kinda. Officers are retired in the highest grade they ‘last served satisfactorily’. So if they open an investigation of General X about a.current sexual harassment claim and discover enough evidence to show he was doing this since he was serving as an O3 Company Commander then the highest grade would be O2/1LT and he could be reduced to that grade and retired.

        TargaGTS in reply to CommoChief. | January 30, 2025 at 8:25 am

        That’s true. But, in practical reality it never happens. The most I’ve seen an officer reduced between the 1980s and 2010s was two ranks. That specific officer was banging a subordinate and it was a long-time affair. While I don’t know for certain, I strongly suspect the vast majority of reductions have to do with sexual misconduct of this nature.

          CommoChief in reply to TargaGTS. | January 30, 2025 at 11:30 am

          Yeah that seems to be the case. The folks can’t keep their hands off subordinates didn’t suddenly start when they hit O7.

      diver64 in reply to TargaGTS. | January 30, 2025 at 5:14 am

      No, that’s not true. Under UCMJ an officer can not be busted down to enlisted rank and given a bad conduct discharge but he/she can be reduced to the lowest officer rank which would be 2cd LT in Milley’s case and given either a General or Other Than Honorable Discharge. That would require a formal review board and then Milley would have to be charged with something, however. What Hegseth is proposing is to avoid that and just look at whether he deserved his latest promotion or not. Much faster and less messy.

        TargaGTS in reply to diver64. | January 30, 2025 at 8:23 am

        Only if the reduction board can demonstrate that the officer served in all the subordinate ranks unsatisfactorily.

      coyote in reply to TargaGTS. | January 30, 2025 at 8:29 am

      Not sure how accurate this is, but it’s worth looking over:

      https://en.mediamass.net/people/mark-milley/highest-paid.html

      Suggests his net worth is close to $150MM. If true, I doubt he cares about his pension.

“Milley’s portrait has been removed”

They are putting up a new portrait of Milley talking on the phone with his Chinese counterpart. The caption says:

a. Giving China a heads up
b. What a friend I have in China
c. Our plans are not secret any more
d. ________________________________________

I submit that the utterly disgraceful, brazenly insubordinate, treasonous and grandstanding “I want to learn about ‘white rage’ ” Milley, is a lucky man.

In a sterner time — not so long ago, in fact — he would have deservedly faced a purer and swifter justice, and, been strung up by his nuts, posthaste, as soon as it had been revealed that he had gone behind his Commander-in-Chief’s and SecDef’s backs and surreptitiously and greasily contacted his Chinese communist counterpart, providing aid and comfort to the enemy.

SecDef Hesgeth’s goal must be rooting out fanatically leftist, subversive, insubordinate, treasonous and grandstanding/attention-seeking narcissists such as the vile Milley, from the DoD.

I’ve known a couple former CJCS, one of them particularly well. I’m not aware of any of them having a protective detail more than a year after they ended active service.

Sad to see that LI censors viewpoints they don’t agree with. Censorship? On comments on LI?? I expect that on the left, not on the right.

    TargaGTS in reply to reselyup. | January 30, 2025 at 8:29 am

    This is almost certainly does not have anything to do with ‘viewpoint censorship,’ and instead, has everything to do with a word you’ve used in the post. I get comments stuck in moderation frequently. You never know what word it might have been that triggered moderation. For instance, there are a number of words used to describe specific types of sexual assault that will trigger moderation. If you use Vice President Cheney’s first name, that name will trigger moderation. There are scores of other words that will as well.

Milley was a scumbag leftist to the core.

Oh, he had concerns about Trump’s ‘mental decline’ (which was complete propaganda from the left), and yet didn’t manage to have any concerns about Bidens very obvious and very public ‘mental decline’.

He should be in prison, and he knows it, that’s why he begged Biden (or more accurately Biden’s staff) for a pardon.

E Howard Hunt | January 29, 2025 at 4:16 pm

I hear Trump’s next move is to demote Major Garrett to private.

Remember, Milley created a bottleneck in the chain of command during the final hours of the Trump administration, requiring that only orders issued or approved by him were to be followed, effectively elevating himself above the POTUS, the lawful civilian authority at the top of the military chain of command. He can’t be tried for this criminality, but he should be demoted for it. (Nancy Pelosi encouraged him in this venture, and she remains exposed to prosecution for her part in it.)

    diver64 in reply to DaveGinOly. | January 30, 2025 at 5:19 am

    He certainly can be tried for it. He was active duty military at the time and an officer so he could be recalled to active duty and Court Martialed. He could be recalled and then be subject to a review and get non judicial punishment of reduction in rank. There are a couple of ways to do it if Hegseth and Trump wanted to go down that road. They sound like removing his security clearance, private security and reduction to his last held rank of 3 Star would be easier and enough to send a message to the Pentagon.

      TargaGTS in reply to diver64. | January 30, 2025 at 8:31 am

      He can’t. Biden pardoned him. Milley’s blanket pardon – like most of the pardons Biden issued – goes back all they to January 1st, 2014.

Good. It’s about time people like him started to suffer the consequences for his actions.

The more people like him who do suffer consequences for their poor decisions means there will be less others after them who try it on as they can see the outcome!

I’m sorry, but what happened to court martials? Doesn’t the UCMJ address betraying your country and commanded in chief?

    Milhouse in reply to Dimsdale. | January 30, 2025 at 7:13 am

    First of all, he didn’t betray his country. He did a lot of bad things, but not that. Warning the Chinese about an imminent attack would be treason; telling them that you’ll warn them if there’s an attack isn’t.

    Second, he was pardoned. That wipes away the offense completely.

    “The pardon wipes out both the crime and the liability to punishment, and restores the petitioner to the rights he before possessed.”

    “The people intended to, and in fact did, clothe the President with the power to pardon all offences, and thereby to wash away the legal stain and extinguish all the legal consequences of treason—all penalties, all punishments, and everything in the nature of punishment.”

      Azathoth in reply to Milhouse. | January 30, 2025 at 9:27 am

      Warning the Chinese about an imminent attack would be treason

      Yes.

      <telling them (the Chinese) that you’ll warn them if there’s an (imminent) attack isn’t.

      Letting the Chinese know that you’re going to commit treason for them isn’t?

      Always, Milhouse, you defend evil.

He could no more “resign” from his position as Chairman than a new lieutenant could resign from being a platoon leader. Milley could have tendered his retirement papers, the approval of which up to the president or, if he really wanted to stick his neck out, tender the resignation of his commission and hope that Trump would back down to avoid the PR uproar that would come with Milley throwing his stars on the Resolute Desk. Tendering a “resignation” as CJCS would have him playing poker with a man who learned negotiation in the jungle of the Manhattan real estate market and had no downside. Trump would have seen it as a stunt and dared him to resign his commission and boxed Milley into either (1) following through and leaving the military entirely or (2) backing down. Either way, Milley would have been defenestrated and Trump would have made that humiliation public before Milley found his car on the way out.

This entire Milley situation sends a strong message to other military brass, you work for POTUS, period.

Jaundiced Observer | January 30, 2025 at 9:31 am

The portrait thing is eerily reminisced of Stalinist Russia and 1984.

“Milley had never served. No one remembersed anyone by that name or could recall anything he had done. There was no record of his ever having even existed.”

Traditionally, the highest permanent rank in the US military is two-star, or, in the Army, major general. Unless that has changed, Milley could lose not one but two stars.