‘SHOULD NOT HAPPEN IN AMERICA’: The number of former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs registering their disapproval of President Trump’s enthusiasm for using military force to control mostly peaceful protests continues to grow.
The latest to weigh in is retired Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, who served as the nation’s top military officer under George W. Bush and during the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.
In an interview last night on CNN, Myers called Monday night’s decision to clear Lafayette Square across from the White House with a force that included National Guard troops “unconstitutional.”
“As I understand it, that was a peaceful protest that was disturbed by force, and that’s not right,” Myers told CNN’s Erin Burnett. “That should not happen in America. And so, I was sad. I mean, we should all shed tears over that, that particular act.”
“The First Amendment, you know, guarantees the American people the right to protest their government and ask for redress for grievances,” said Myers, who is now the president of Kansas State University. “So, the people are doing what the Constitution allows, and they should be allowed to do it.”
‘USING THE MILITARY WAS TROUBLING’: On NPR, former Joint Chiefs Chairman retired Army Gen. Martin Dempsey amplified sentiments he first expressed in a tweet Monday, when he said, “America is not a battleground. Our fellow citizens are not the enemy.”
“The idea that the president would take charge of the situation using the military was troubling to me,” Dempsey said in an interview airing this morning. “The idea that the military would be called in to dominate and to suppress what, for the most part, were peaceful protests — admittedly, where some had opportunistically turned them violent — and that the military would somehow come in and calm that situation was very dangerous to me,” he said.
‘A DEEPLY SHAMEFUL MOMENT’: Former Defense Secretary William Perry joined other former Pentagon chiefs in denouncing the militarization of crowd control forces. “I am outraged at the deplorable behavior of our President and Defense Secretary Esper, threatening to use American military forces to suppress peaceful demonstrators exercising their constitutional rights,” Perry tweeted last night. “This is a deeply shameful moment for our nation.”
REWRITING HISTORY: Perry’s denunciation followed the publication of an essay by Trump’s first defense secretary, in which retired Marine Gen. Jim Mattis accused Trump of using troops “to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens.”
Trump continues to argue he fired Mattis for failing to “bring home the bacon” and dismisses his criticism as coming from a disgraced, disgruntled former Cabinet member.
That doesn’t match what we know about Mattis’s resignation Dec. 20, 2018, which followed a meeting in the White House in which Mattis reportedly told the president, “You’re going to have to get the next secretary of defense to lose to ISIS. I’m not going to do it,” as he handed Trump a resignation letter he had written ahead of time.
That letter contained the now-famous sentence, “Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours … I believe it is right for me to step down from my position.”
Trump initially tweeted his praise of Mattis, announcing he would be retiring “with distinction, at the end of February.” But after seeing how Mattis’s resignation was playing, he did remove him effective Jan. 1, two months ahead of the date Mattis set for his retirement.
KELLY’S CORRECTION: “The president did not fire him. He did not ask for his resignation. The president has clearly forgotten how it actually happened or is confused,” said former White House chief of staff John Kelly, who called Mattis “an honorable man.”
In an interview with the Washington Post, Kelly said, “The president tweeted a very positive tweet about Jim until he started to see on Fox News their interpretation of his letter. Then, he got nasty.”
Trump disputes Kelly’s account, insisting his chief of staff was out of the loop. “John Kelly didn’t know I was going to fire James Mattis, nor did he have any knowledge of my asking for a letter of resignation,” Trump tweeted. “Why would I tell him, he was not in my inner-circle, was totally exhausted by the job, and in the end just slinked away into obscurity. They all want to come back for a piece of the limelight!”
Good Friday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, written and compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) and edited by David Sivak and Tyler Van Dyke. Email here with tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. Sign up or read current and back issues at DailyonDefense.com. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll add you to our list. And be sure to follow us on Twitter: @dailyondefense.
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HAPPENING TODAY: Rear Adm. Robert Chadwick, commander, Navy Region Hawaii and Naval Surface Group Middle Pacific, speaks at 3 p.m. at a virtual 78th Anniversary of the Battle of Midway remembrance ceremony at the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The ceremony will be streamed live on Defense.gov.
WHO USED THE TEAR GAS? Trump has asserted that tear gas was not used against protesters who were forcibly cleared from Lafayette Square Monday night. His campaign has accused the news media of running with “the false conspiracy theory without checking basic facts.”
The U.S. Park Police initially said it used “smoke canisters and pepper balls” to disperse the crowd, not tear gas or rubber bullets.
Yesterday, local Washington, D.C., TV station WUSA 9 displayed spent CS (tear) gas canisters, which it says it collected from the scene Monday night.
The Park Police has updated its statement to continue to deny any use of tear gas: “USPP officers and other assisting law enforcement partners did not use tear gas or OC Skat Shells to close the area at Lafayette Park.”
‘TERRORISTS’ IN THE PARK: Among Trump’s tweets yesterday was a letter he shared from former Trump lawyer John Dowd, who described the protesters Monday night as “terrorists.”
“I thought this letter from respected retired Marine and Super Star lawyer, John Dowd, would be of interest to the American People,” Trump tweeted. “Read it!”
“The phony protesters near Lafayette were not peaceful and are not real,” Dowd writes in his letter, which appears to be addressed to Jim Mattis. “They are terrorists using idle hate filled students to burn and destroy. They were abusing and disrespecting the police when the police were preparing the area for the 1900 curfew.”
‘A CHALLENGE TO THE RULE OF LAW’: Meanwhile at a Justice Department press conference, Attorney General William Barr said that while “the large preponderance of those who are protesting are peaceful demonstrators who are exercising their First Amendment rights,” the aftermath of George Floyd’s death has produced a “challenge to the rule of law.”
“While many have peacefully expressed their anger and grief, others have hijacked protests to engage in lawlessness — violent rioting and arson, looting of businesses and public property, assaults on law enforcement officers and innocent people, and even the murder of a federal agent,” Barr said. “Such senseless acts of anarchy are not exercises of First Amendment rights; they are crimes designed to terrify fellow citizens and intimidate communities.”
“We have evidence that antifa and other similar extremist groups, as well as actors of a variety of different political persuasions, have been involved in instigating and participating in the violent activity. We are also seeing foreign actors playing all sides to exacerbate the violence,” said Barr, who is in charge of the federal response.
FEDERAL TROOPS DEPARTING: A day after Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he was opposed to using the Insurrection Act of 1807 to authorize the use of active-duty military police to assist law enforcement in riot control, the Pentagon is sending hundreds of troops back to their home bases, according to Politico.
Earlier this week, the Pentagon confirmed that about 1,600 troops had been flown into the Washington area and placed on “heightened alert status,” including military police units from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and Fort Drum, New York.
MORE TROOPS THAN KATRINA: The National Guard Bureau reports that there are now more than 75,000 Guard troops activated nationwide, surpassing the more than 51,000 Guard members activated after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Between support for the COVID-19 response and support for local law enforcement, the Guard activation is now the largest in recent years.
There are now more than 32,000 Guard troops on duty in 32 states and Washington, D.C., in response to civil unrest.
The Rundown
Washington Examiner: Trump backs down on Insurrection Act but not before rebuke from military leaders
Washington Examiner: Trump echoes Reagan and Nixon in law-and-order tack
Washington Examiner: ‘The nightmare is over’: Iran releases US veteran after nearly two years of captivity
Washington Examiner: Barr says foreign actors are trying to ‘exacerbate the violence’ at George Floyd protests
Task & Purpose: Former Marine commandant on nationwide protests: ‘The time for being silent has passed’
Washington Examiner: Coronavirus infects Pentagon’s voting assistance program
Washington Post: Pentagon’s Coronavirus Plan Includes Millions For Vaccine Development And Medical Supplies
AP: Navy Carrier Sidelined By Virus Is Back Operating In Pacific
Military.com: Navy Wants to Designate ‘Safe Haven’ Ports Where Ships Can Stop During Pandemic
Virginian-Pilot: Next Generation Of Aircraft Carrier Sails Alongside The Old For The First Time
Air Force Magazine: Air Force to Test Fighter Drone Against Human Pilot
AP: Russia Defends Iran Satellite Launch Against US Opposition
Bloomberg: Lawmakers in Eight Countries Form New Alliance to Counter China
Washington Post: Mattis’s rebuke of Trump forces Republicans to choose between revered Marine and the president
Washington Post: As protests spread, tensions escalated over Trump’s reach for military in response
Fox News: Marine Corps veteran shot with rubber bullets by police at protest, ‘I had my hands up’
The Nation: Trump Is Deploying Troops Against Americans, and Military Leaders Are Abetting Him
Calendar
FRIDAY | JUNE 5
1 p.m. — Center for Strategic and International Studies Future Strategy Forum: “Covid-19 and Democracy and Governance,” with Camille Stewart, cybersecurity policy fellow, New America; Susanna Campbell, assistant professor, School of International Service, American University; Lainie Rutkow, senior adviser to the president, National Capital Academic Strategy; professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Suzanne Spaulding, senior adviser, homeland security, International Security Program, CSIS. https://www.csis.org/events/online-event
11 a.m. — Foreign Area Officer Association and Daniel Morgan Graduate School of National Security discussion, via Zoom: “Middle East Security, Economics, and Politics,” with Tim Lenderking, deputy assistant secretary of state for Arabian Gulf affairs, and Brig. Gen. Scott Benedict, the joint staff deputy director for Middle East. Register at [email protected].
3 p.m. USS Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii — Rear Adm. Robert Chadwick, commander of Navy Region Hawaii and Naval Surface Group Middle Pacific, delivers remarks at a virtual 78th Anniversary of the Battle of Midway remembrance ceremony. Livestream at https://www.defense.gov/Watch/Live-Events/.
MONDAY | JUNE 8
9 a.m. — Atlantic Council and the German Marshall Fund transatlantic conversation with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on strengthening the alliance in an increasingly competitive world. Streamed live on the NATO website.
3 p.m. — Jewish Institute for National Security of America conference call: “Space Force: Competition for Higher Ground,“ with retired Gen. William Shelton, former commander, Air Force Space Command; retired Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton, former commander, U.S. Strategic Command; and Jeb Nadaner, JINSA vice president and senior fellow. https://jinsa.org/events
TUESDAY | JUNE 9
10 a.m. — Mitchell Institute Aerospace Nation webcast “A Conversation with Will Roper,” who is the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology, and logistics. Invitation only. After the event, a recording will be posted at https://www.mitchellaerospacepower.org/aerospace-nation.
2 p.m. G50 Dirksen — Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel markup of National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021. https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/hearings
WEDNESDAY | JUNE 10
10:30 a.m. — Heritage Foundation webinar: “Army Aviation – The Future of Vertical Lift,” with Brig. Gen. Walter Rugen, director, Future Vertical Lift Cross Functional Team, U.S. Army Futures Command; Patrick Mason, program executive officer, aviation, U.S. Army; retired Army Lt. Gen. Thomas Spoehr, director, Heritage Foundation Center for National Defense. https://www.heritage.org/defense/event/webinar
THURSDAY | JUNE 11
10 a.m. — George Washington University Project for Media and National Security Defense Writers Group conference call conversation with Thomas McCaffery, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. https://nationalsecuritymedia.gwu.edu/
5 p.m. — George Mason University National Security Institute “NatSec Nightcap,” with former Sen. Saxby Chambliss, former vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; and Jamil Jaffer, founder and executive director, NSI. https://nationalsecurity.gmu.edu/natsec-nightcap
TUESDAY | JUNE 16
11 a.m. — Nextgov and Defense One webcast: “Genius Machines: AI on the Frontlines.” https://govexec.webex.com
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“That was a peaceful protest that was disturbed by force, and that’s not right. That should not happen in America. And so, I was sad. I mean, we should all shed tears over that, that particular act.”
Former Joint Chiefs Chairman retired Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, on the clearing of protesters from Lafayette Park Monday night.
