Retired Gen. Mark Milley, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Trump and Biden administrations, has had both his security detail and his security clearance revoked, the Pentagon says.
New Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “informed General Milley today that he is revoking the authorization for his security detail and suspending his security clearance as well,” Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot told CBS News in a statement Tuesday night.
Ullyot said Hegseth “also directed” the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General to “conduct 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.”
Acting Defense Department Inspector General Stephen Stebbins received a request to review whether Milley, a four-star general, should be stripped of a star, a spokesperson with the Pentagon’s inspector general’s office also told CBS News. Stebbins is reviewing the request.
Mr. Trump nominated Milley to head the Joint Chiefs during his first term, a position Milley held for a full four-year term from 2019 until 2023.
Mr. Trump and Milley, however, had a public falling out in the final months of Mr. Trump’s first term over several incidents, beginning with an apology Milley issued for taking part, while dressed in fatigues, in the photo op in front of St. John’s Church in June 2020 after federal officers cleared out social justice protesters from Lafayette Park so Mr. Trump could walk to the church from the White House.
A book published in September 2021 revealed that Milley had also engaged in two phone calls — one on Oct. 30, 2020, and the second on Jan. 8, 2021, two days after the Capitol insurrection — with Chinese General Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army in order to assure him that the U.S. would not launch an attack against China and that the U.S. was stable.
At the time of the revelation, Mr. Trump claimed Milley should be tried for “treason.” Then, in a shocking 2023 social media post, Mr. Trump suggested the calls constituted a “treasonous act” that could warrant execution.
In an October 2023 interview with “60 Minutes,” Milley said the calls were “an example of deescalation. So — there was clear indications — that the Chinese were very concerned about what they were observing — here in the United States.”
According to another 2021 book, Milley feared that Mr. Trump would attempt a coup after losing the 2020 election and made preparations in case such a plan had been carried out.
On Jan. 20, as he was leaving office, former President Joe Biden preemptively pardoned Milley along with others he thought could be targeted by the Trump administration.
In a statement Tuesday, Joe Kasper, Defense Department Chief of Staff, told CBS News that “undermining the chain of command is corrosive to our national security, and restoring accountability is a priority for the Defense Department under President Trump’s leadership.”
The Trump administration has also revoked the federal security details of former Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Trump national security adviser John Bolton, former Trump special envoy on Iran Brian Hook and Dr. Anthony Fauci, former longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
contributed to this report.
