Gen. Mark Milley should resign as Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman after making "seditious" comments, Army Ret. Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg told Newsmax.
Kellogg appeared on Tuesday’s "The Chris Salcedo Show" and was asked about statements attributed to Milley, who in a new book says he feared former President Donald Trump and allies might attempt to use the military to stay in office.
"I think he's discredited his position as chairman of the Joint Chiefs," Kellogg said. "My opinion, and I’ve known Mark a lot of years, he needs to resign or they should remove him."
Trump on Friday said he "never once" discussed the possibility of a coup to remain in office despite his belief that the 2020 presidential election was determined by voting fraud in several battleground states.
In "I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year," Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker write that Milley and other military officials worried that Trump might attempt a coup.
"You can't do this without the military. You can't do this without the CIA and the FBI. We're the guys with the guns," Milley reportedly told his deputies.
Kellogg said Milley "crossed the line."
"There’s civilian control of the military, that’s absolute — I really believe in it. I strongly believe in it," Kellogg said. "The senior uniformed military really just kind of needs to keep its mouth shut when you get into this area.
"He should step back and instead of talking, what I believe to be seditious behavior on his part, he should understand what his role in the military."
Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Robert Spalding appeared with Kellogg, and was asked about Milley defending the military’s wokeness and forcing troops to study critical race theory.
Critical race theory is defined by the Encyclopedia Britannica as the concept in which race is a socially constructed category ingrained in American law intended to maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites. It holds that the U.S. society is inherently or systemically racist.
"Critical Race Theory, by its nature, is designed to be a racist ideology," Spalding said. "And I’m concerned that he would make those statements and not understand what CRT is actually meant to do."
"Greg Kelly Reports" host Greg Kelly last week said Milley’s comments could be an attempt to satisfy the left. The general’s two-year term as chairman is up in a couple months and he needs to be renominated by President Joe Biden to continue in that position.
Kellogg, who served as the National Security Advisor to then-Vice President Mike Pence, said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has three primary roles: provide professional military advice to the president, provide professional military advice to the National Security Council, and provide professional military advice to the Secretary of Defense.
"Those are all very important roles that he has. He doesn’t have any other role," Kellogg said. "He doesn’t command any troops. Those troops are commanded by combat commands who report to the Secretary of Defense, a civilian.
"The chiefs of the services — the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and Space Force — all report to respective civilian control. Civilians that are both appointed and confirmed by the Senate."
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