A Republican lawmaker confronted Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley for his controversial call to his Chinese counterpart.
Milley’s two phone calls with Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army both right before the 2020 presidential election and after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot have been a frequent topic during his testimony on Capitol Hill.
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Rep. Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican, questioned Milley about the calls and who was read in on them during his allotted time in the House Armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Frank McKenzie, the head of U.S. Central Command, were testifying alongside Milley.
“You claim that you had information, and it is all over that China was worried about an imminent attack,” he said, going on to list various former administration officials who allegedly weren’t told of the conversations, though Milley rebutted some of those names. “You report that after you took upon yourself to have this phone conversation, that you told them the conversation occurred.”
The lawmaker proceeded to request a litany of relevant documents being provided to committee members pertaining to the intelligence that China was fearful an attack from the United States could come, which was the reason behind Milley’s calls to Li. Turner also requested a transcript of the calls.
“Now, you chose to talk to reporters instead of us, and that is of great concern,” he added. “No one in Congress knew that one of two of the major nuclear powers thought that they were perhaps being threatened for attack.”
Milley, both previously and during his testimony, has defended the call and said it fit within his purview.
“I’ll be happy to share that with you and go over line by line,” Milley said of the intelligence reports. “This is all done with oversight, and I tried to lay that out in the memorandum. I tried to lay it out in a timeline in unclassified way that you could use.”
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At another point in the hearing, Milley explained that China was fearful of a possible attack even though then-President Donald Trump “had no intent to attack,” and he was tasked with “mak[ing] sure I communicated that.”
“Hell, I’ll call you, but we’re not going to attack you,” he said he told Li, noting that “there’s not going to be an attack between great powers, and if it was, the tensions would build up, there would be calls going back and forth” between the two countries.
