‘Extraordinary Moment’: Jan. 6 Committee Reveals Gen. Milley Agreed With Pelosi Trump is ‘Crazy’ – Reassured Her Nuke Codes Were Safe
The House Jan. 6th Committee released additional documents on Sunday, including the transcript of the committee’s sit down with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley.
Milley’s testimony from November 17, 2021, offered multiple headline-grabbing moments, including his agreeing with then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) account of a phone call between the two on Jan. 8th, 2021 — two days after the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
CBS’s Robert Costa tweeted the relevant part of the transcript on Monday, flagging it as “An extraordinary moment in American history.”
“A speaker of the House asks the chairman of the joint chiefs if the nuclear codes are safe because she fears the president is crazy and liable to make a deadly decision to stay in power,” Costa wrote, sharing the section of the transcript.
The question asked by the committee reads, “Yeah. What prompts her call is concern about the President’s stability or mental health. She even says in the call, ‘You know he’s crazy, don’t you,’ and she is reported to have said, General Milley, that you agreed with her.”
The transcript adds:
You said: I agree a hundred percent with everything you’ve said. The one thing I can guarantee is that as the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, I want you to know, I want to you to know this in your heart of hearts. I can guarantee you 110 percent that the military, use of military power, whether it’s nuclear or strike in a foreign country of any kind, we’re not going to do anything illegal or crazy.
You reassured her that, despite her concerns about the President’s stability, the nuclear codes and the launch capacity has to go through this process, and you personally will ensure that nothing crazy, the word that you used, happens.
“That’s right. And I was, you know, talking to the Speaker of the House,” Milley answered, according to the transcript.
Costa noted that the question from the committee, based on Pelosi’s account of the phone call, was first reported by Bob Woodward in his September 2021 book Peril.
“So much of the Pelosi legacy, understandably, focuses on legislation. But her deep alarm about Trump in the final days, and the steps she took, from urgent call to Milley to pushing Pence to invoke 25th, then moving to impeach, is a key part of it, too. She saw a system at risk,” Costa concluded, regarding the call.
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