Gen. Mark Milley Says Accompanying Trump To Church Photo-Op Was A Mistake
Ten days after leaving the White House with President Trump and walking with him across a park that had been forcibly cleared of protesters, the nation's most senior military officer is calling that excursion "a mistake."
"I should not have been there," Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared Thursday in a video message to graduating officers at the National Defense University.
Milley has drawn pointed criticism from retired military officers not only for accompanying the president in what turned out to be a staged photo-op in front of a boarded-up St. John's Church, but for having done so dressed in baggy battle fatigues.
Milley, whom Trump chose last year to hold the military's highest rank, also admonished the graduating class of commissioned officers to embrace the U.S. Constitution.
Both Milley and Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who also accompanied Trump in his walk across the cleared Lafayette Square, have said they were not aware where Trump was going when they fell in step behind him, and that they thought they were leaving the White House to thank National Guard troops stationed nearby.
