A former assistant secretary of the Army under President Trump has accused top military officials Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army Gen. James McConville of engaging in a "pattern of behavior" that overstepped their authority and undermined potential commands from Trump.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, E. Casey Wardynski, a former assistant secretary of the Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs under the Trump administration, accused high-ranking military officials Milley and McConville of making statements that insinuated they were calling the shots.
"These kind of behaviors and this willingness for military leaders to exceed their authorities and ignore authorities of the civilian officials appointed over them … positions under the Constitution and laws of the country was not something that came to them on Jan. 8," Wardynski said. "It was something that they had done for a while."
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"It was in and around the riots in D.C.," Wardynski said. "Gen. Milley, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – first thing to know, is he is a staff officer, he is an adviser, he's not a commander – he ordered elements of the 82nd Airborne and the 10th Mountain Division to fly overnight to D.C. to Fort Belvoir and Andrews without consulting the Army chain of command and reaching around the chain of command to do that. I know that for a fact."
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Wardynski went on to detail two separate occasions when McConville told him that he "would not be obeying any illegal orders from the president" amid several violent riots across the nation in the summer of 2020, particularly in D.C.
"That's not something in 30 years of service in that uniform I thought I'd ever hear," Wardynski said. "My interpretation of that was he was talking about any use of the Insurrection Act by the president."
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Wardynski also stated that McConville, who served as Milley's deputy during his time as chief of staff of the Army, seemingly "expected the cadets to demonstrate against the president" during the 2020 West Point graduation.
"He told me that if they did, he would not be a 'prop' for the president," Wardynski said, adding that McConville's comment referred to Trump's walk to historic St. John's Church with administration members and military officials, a move Milley, who accompanied Trump, said he considers a "mistake."
Regarding Milley, Wardynski said he was a "bully" in meetings and insisted he would regularly overstep his authority to control the agenda, claiming that he and others, for some time, had no "intention of supporting" Trump.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/milley-mcconville-pattern-behavior-defy-authority
