Mark Milley, an Army general and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is retiring at the end of September as the nation's top military officer, is denying claims he told former President Donald Trump to attack Iran.
"As the chairman or any member of the joint chiefs, our job is to render advice," Milley told CNN in an excerpt of an interview published Thursday. "We have plans for all kinds of things. And when we render advice, typically we say course of action one, two, or three.
"We talk about the costs and the risks, and we make recommendations. And I can assure you that not one time have I ever recommended to attack Iran."
Trump, in a 2021 audio recording obtained by CNN in June, was heard discussing an "example" of a doc provided to him by Milley containing alleged plans to attack Iran.
The claims are at the center of the former president's legal battle over charges he allegedly failed to return classified documents to the government.
"Let me see that, I'll show you an example," Trump says on the tape. "They presented me this — this is off the record" he adds as someone sorts through papers in the background.
"He said that I wanted to attack Iran, isn't it amazing?" Trump said. "I have a big pile of papers, this thing just came up. Look. This was him. … They presented me this. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him.
"This wasn't done by me. They never met a war they didn't want."
Milley, who was tapped by Trump in 2018 to be the nation's highest-ranking officer, told CNN he can speak "with certainty that this chairman never recommended a wholesale attack on Iran.
"And to do that, I think would require a significant degree of risk that we may or may not want to take given the circumstances, but that that part of it didn't happen.
"And I'm not sure I don't know the exact quotes that [Trump's Chief of Staff Mark] Mr. Meadows said, but I can assure you I know what I've done and it's not to recommend an attack on Iran."
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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