The Red State Observer reported yesterday that former acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, who was in charge of the Pentagon during the time General Milley made his calls to Chine, has stated that he never authorized those calls.

The article reports:

In a statement to Fox News, Miller said that the United States Armed Forces, from its inception, has “operated under the inviolable principle of civilian control of the military.”

“The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the highest-ranking military officer whose sole role is providing military-specific advice to the president, and by law is prohibited from exercising executive authority to command forces,” Miller said. “The chain of command runs from the President to the Secretary of Defense, not through the Chairman.”

…The book (“Peril,” co-written by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa) claims Milley contacted Li after he had reviewed intelligence that suggested Chinese officials believed the United States was planning an attack on China amid military exercises in the South China Sea. The authors of the book also claim Milley contacted Li a second time to reassure him that the U. S. would not make any type of advances or attack China in any form, as Milley promised, “We are 100% steady. Everything’s fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.”

But Fox News spoke with multiple individuals who were in the room during the two phone calls Milley had with Li. The calls, in October, were coordinated with then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s office.

“They were not secret,” a U. S. official told Fox News about the calls, which took place over video teleconference.

The article continues:

Fox News has learned there were about 15 people present for the calls. Sources told Fox News that there were multiple notetakers present, and said the calls were both conducted with full knowledge of then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper and then-acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller – something Miller denied.

“If the reporting in Woodward’s book is accurate, it represents a disgraceful and unprecedented act of insubordination by the Nation’s top military officer,” Miller said, adding that if the story of Milley’s “histrionic outbursts and unsanctioned, anti-Constitutional involvement in foreign policy prove true, he must resign immediately or be fired by the Secretary of Defense to guarantee the sanctity of the officer corps.”

“Pursuit of partisan politics and individual self-interests are a violation of an officer’s sacred duty and have no place in the United States military,” Miller said, adding that “a lesser ranking officer accused of such behavior would immediately be relieved of duty pending a thorough and independent investigation.”

“As secretary of defense, I did not and would not ever authorize such conduct,” Miller said.

I should note here that sources in the Defense Department (and our military) are not always reliable.

The article notes:

And former chief of staff for the Department of Defense Kash Patel told Fox News that “the law governing the Joint Chiefs of Staff specifically forbids the chairman from exercising any operational command authority.”

“Congress put this in the statute because the U. S. military is to be led by a civilian, the commander-in-chief,” Patel continued. “Furthermore, by law, the national command authority goes from the president to the secretary of Defense to include anything relating troop deployments, operations in theaters of war, and nuclear command.”

Patel added that if the calls with China are true, Milley “has violated the law regarding operational authority.”

Stay tuned.