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Milley, Pompeo and Meadows began regularly conferring at 8 a.m. most November mornings on a secure phone line, just the three of them, to assess the international diplomatic and military situation.
The call’s purpose was to preserve stability during a period of potential instability, and to avoid anything untoward or provocative.
Chris Miller was not invited to join. Milley was also suspicious of Meadows, who seemed to be part of the group supporting Trump’s claims that the election was stolen.
“We’ve got to land this plane,” Milley said cautiously on one of the early calls of the new power troika. “We’ve got to make sure there’s a peaceful transfer of power.”
Milley arranged to speak at a Veterans Day celebration at the Army Museum on November 11.
“We do not take an oath to a king, or a queen,” Milley told the crowd, “to a tyrant or a dictator. We do not take an oath to an individual. No, we do not take an oath to a country, a tribe, or a religion. We take an oath to the Constitution.” He added, “Each of us will protect and defend that document, regardless of personal price.”
After his speech, Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy said, “You’ve got about five hours” until Trump finds out and fires you.
Hollyanne, Milley’s wife, assumed the same. “And we haven’t even bought a home yet!”
But apparently Trump didn’t learn about the remarks. He did not say anything to Milley and took no action.
Later that day, Milley walked upstairs to Acting Secretary Miller’s office about 1 p.m. and sat down. They were joined by Miller’s chief of staff, Kash Patel, an attorney and a little known but highly controversial former congressional intelligence aide to California congressman Devin Nunes, one of Trump’s staunchest defenders.
Columnist David Ignatius called Patel “almost a ‘Zelig’ figure” in the ranks of the Trump administration who believed a “deep state” was operating against the president. After working with Nunes, Patel had joined Trump’s National Security Council and later took another top intelligence post before winding up as Miller’s chief.
Once, while talking with Barr, Mark Meadows floated the idea of having Trump name Patel deputy FBI director. Meadows, who was a fierce critic of the Russia probe and the FBI’s handling of it, felt Patel could be an ally inside a bureau whose leadership he believed was corrupt.
“Over my dead body,” Barr said.
“You have to understand something,” he added. “Everyone in that building is an agent. They’ve all been through the academy. They’ve all been running cities, they’ve been doing counterterrorism, crime. They all have the same background. The only person who is not an agent is the director.”
Barr asked Meadows, “Do you think that son of a bitch is going to go over there and command respect from these guys? They’ll eat him alive.”
Meadows persisted in trying to force Patel into the FBI post. But this was Barr’s world and he would not give. Meadows eventually dropped the subject. Meadows next tried to insert Patel into the CIA.
CIA director Gina Haspel told Barr that Meadows, apparently the de facto chief job placement officer for Patel, directed her to fire her current deputy, Vaughn Bishop, to make way for her new deputy. It was a fait accompli.
She described her White House meeting with Meadows.
“Okay, I need to go down the hall,” she told him.
“Why?” asked Meadows.
“I have to tell the president that I’m not going to tolerate that,” she said. “I would leave.”
Meadows then backed off for the second time.
On November 11, Patel slid a one-page memo across the table—whoosh—to Milley.
It read: “November 11, 2020 Memorandum for the Acting Secretary of Defense: Withdrawal from Somalia and Afghanistan.”
“I hereby direct you to withdraw all U.S. forces from the Federal Republic of Somalia no later than 31 December 2020 and from the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan no later than 15 January 2021. Inform all allied and partner forces of the directives. Please confirm receipt of this order.”
It was signed “Donald Trump,” with large, thick strokes of his celebrated black marker.
“Did you have something to do with this?” Milley asked Patel.
“No, no,” Patel said. “I just saw this, Chairman.”
“Are you the one behind this?” Milley asked the acting secretary of defense.
“No, no, no,” Miller said.
Trump had been trying to get a full withdrawal from Afghanistan his whole presidency. The military had resisted year after year. Now, in his last five months, Trump was going to order it—if the memorandum was genuine.
On one hand, it was suspect because the format was wrong and not in the style of a traditional “NSM”—National Security Memorandum—which were often long and formal. On the other hand, Milley doubted that he would be presented with a forgery in the office of the secretary of defense, even though Miller was new and only the acting secretary of defense.
“Well, I’m putting my uniform on,” Milley said because he was just wearing camouflage. “I’m going to see the president since he signed something that concerns military operations, and he did so without all the due diligence and military advice that I’m supposed to give him by law.
“This is really fucked up and I’m going to go see the president. I’m heading over. You guys can come or not.”
They chose to accompany him. Once Milley changed into his regular uniform, all three were driven by security to the White House for an unusual, no-notice appearance.
“Robert, what the fuck is this?” Milley said after he, Miller and Patel walked into National Security Adviser O’Brien’s corner office in the West Wing. Keith Kellogg, Pence’s national security adviser and a Trump ally, was also there.
Milley handed the copy of the order to O’Brien, who stood at his desk.
“How did this happen?” Milley asked. “Was there any process here at all? How does a president do this?”
O’Brien looked at the memo and read.
“I have no idea,” he said.
“What do you mean you have no idea? You’re the national security adviser to the president. You’re telling me you didn’t know about this?”
“No, I didn’t know about this,” O’Brien said.
“And the secretary of defense didn’t know about this? And the chief of staff to the secretary of defense didn’t know about this? The chairman didn’t know? How the hell does this happen?”
“Let me have that,” Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general, said. He took it and scanned it.
“This is fucked up,” Kellogg said. “The header is wrong. This wasn’t done right. This wasn’t the president.”
“Keith,” Milley said to Kellogg, “are you telling me someone forged the president of the United States’ signature on a military directive?”
“I don’t know,” Kellogg said. “I don’t know.”
Let me have that, O’Brien said. “I’ll be right back.”
He left for several minutes. As best O’Brien could tell, the National Security Council, the staff secretary and the White House counsel had not been involved or consulted.
“Mr. President, you’ve got to have a meeting with the principals,” O’Brien said. The president did not say the signature was a forgery. He had signed it. But he agreed to have a Principals Meeting before any formal policy decision was finalized.
“All right,” O’Brien said returning to his office, “we’ve already taken care of this. It was a mistake. The memo was nullified.” It was effectively a rogue memo and had no standing. The president would later meet with the principals to render a decision on Afghanistan troops.
“Okay, fine,” Milley said, accepting the assurances. He, Miller and Patel then left, never having seen the president.
Case closed.
Jonathan Swan and Zachary Basu of Axios later established in May 2021 that John McEntee, the president’s former body man and a former college quarterback now running personnel, and retired Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor, a senior adviser to Miller, played roles in the drafting and signing of the memo.
The next day, Thursday, November 12, election security groups, including from the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Association of State Election Directors, released a joint statement that said, “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.
“All of the states with close results in the 2020 presidential race have paper records of each vote, allowing the ability to go back and count each ballot if necessary. This is an added benefit for security and resilience. This process allows for the identification and correction of any mistakes or errors.” In bold it added, “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
Trump soon fired Department of Homeland Security’s cyber chief, Chris Krebs, by tweet.
At 5 p.m. on November 12, Trump summoned his national security team to another meeting on Iran.
The International Atomic Energy Agency had just reported the day before that Iran had stockpiled 5,385 pounds of low-enriched uranium, 12 times the amount allowed under Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, which Trump had abandoned.
That was enough uranium eventually to produce two nuclear bombs, but it would take months for Iran to further enrich the uranium to bomb-grade.
CIA director Haspel confirmed that their intelligence showed Iran was many months from having a nuclear weapon.
Milley reviewed the standard list of options, from increased cyberattacks to the use of U.S. ground forces.
Here are the costs in casualties and dollars, he said. High and not certain at all. Here are the risks: Very high and uncertain. And here are the likely outcomes.
Military strikes inside Iran means war, Milley said. “It means you’re going to war. You’re on an escalation ladder you’re not going to get off. You’re not necessarily in control of the outcome and the ending.”
Milley realized one of the permanent variables was that he, perhaps no one, knew any president’s trigger point. Maybe the president, especially Trump, did not know himself.
I recommend you reject all the options, Milley said. Too risky and unnecessary.
Milley turned to Pompeo. “What do you think, Mike?” Pompeo had long been an advocate of military action against Iran.
“Mr. President,” Pompeo said, “the risk isn’t worth it.”
Pompeo and Milley went back and forth like a tag team underscoring the reasons not to take any military action.
Vice President Pence and Acting Defense Secretary Miller, in office just three days, seemed to agree that no military action should be taken.
Okay, thanks, Trump said. He wouldn’t say “do it,” he wouldn’t say “don’t do it.” The decision was left hanging, a maddening and inconclusive pattern particularly given the experience with the nullified Afghanistan memo. As Milley once said to an adviser, “The whole Iran thing comes and goes and comes and goes and comes and goes.”
Haspel was worried about the lack of a clear decision and called Milley, “This is a highly dangerous situation. We are going to lash out for his ego?”
Later that night, Pompeo called Milley and thanked him for arguing against a strike and emphasizing the downsides.
“We’re all good,” Milley said, emphasizing the importance of calm and piling on the metaphors. “Just steady. Breathe through our noses. Steady as a rock. We’re going to land this plane safely. We’ve got a plane with four engines and three of them are out. We’ve got no landing gear. But we’re going to land this plane and we’re going to land it safely.”
Milley added, “Climb Suribachi,” a reference to the 554-foot mountain on Iwo Jima where Marines raised an American flag in 1945, depicted in an iconic photograph. Nearly 7,000 Marines died and 20,000 were wounded in the celebrated battle.
Pompeo said the time for military action had passed.
“We’re too late,” he said. “We can’t strike Iran now. Leave it to the next person. I never want to talk about fucking Iran again.”