WASHINGTON ― Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) said in a recent interview that retired U.S. Army General Mark Milley and former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin should be court-martialed ― a military legal proceeding typically reserved for serious crimes ― because they made the Department of Defense too “politicized” to win wars.
“We have the most highly educated and powerful military in the history of the world, and we have not won a war in 80 years,” Van Orden lamented during a little-noticed Jan. 15 interview on the Vicki McKenna Show, a right-wing radio show.
He said the Department of Defense over the decades “has become politicized,” and it reached its peak when it was run by Lloyd and Milley.
“Those guys need to be recalled to active duty and court-martialed for their disgraceful conduct,” said Van Orden. “It’s been terrible. They’ve broken the military.”
The court martial process is the most severe legal proceeding that someone in the military can face. Commissioned officers and sometimes enlisted personnel serve as the jury in a trial for members of the armed forces. Military commanders typically initiate court-martial proceedings, but presidents technically have the power to convene a court-martial, too.
There is no evidence that Milley or Austin committed any crimes during their active service, never mind severe crimes like felonies.
Asked why he would propose such an extreme action or on what grounds, Van Orden railed against Milley and Austin but did not offer any evidence of criminal behavior.
Instead, he complained about Milley making calls to his Chinese counterpart in the final months of Donald Trump’s first presidency. Milley, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2019 to 2023, revealed in a 2021 book, Peril, that he was so worried about Trump potentially starting a war with China that he privately made two phone calls to General Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army to assure him it would not happen.
Milley said he feared that Trump, who spent months lying about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, was poised to declare a national emergency and stay in power, despite losing the election. The retired U.S. Army general has denied any wrongdoing with his calls, saying they were part of his regular communications with global defense leaders.
As for Austin, Van Orden criticized the former defense secretary for his role in President Joe Biden’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.
“There is nothing more disgusting than when members of the Department of Defense (DoD) desert their duty of protecting American citizens and servicemembers,” the Wisconsin Republican said in a statement.
“General Mark Milley is a disgrace to the uniform for communicating with the Chinese Communist Party and compromising our national security,” said Van Orden. “Secretary Lloyd Austin is a disgrace to the uniform by not fulfilling his duties of executing Noncombatant Evacuation Operations, not working with Secretary Blinken to fulfill the plan which resulted in the murdering of 13 U.S. servicemembers, and improperly evacuating every member of the military and abandoning civilians in Kabul.”
Then, for some reason, Van Orden blamed HuffPost for making the world less secure.
“Leftist news organizations like the HuffPost should be ashamed,” he said. “You all are complicit in the destruction of the DoD and making the world less secure by disguising political activism as journalism.”
(Editor’s note: America is facing the greatest challenge to our democratic experiment since the Civil War. HuffPost is not afraid, and our mission is clearer than ever: We won’t back down when it comes to providing impartial journalism. Support our work here.)
Milley did not respond to a request for comment.
Austin could not be reached for comment.
The real reason Van Orden is going after Milley is almost certainly because the retired U.S. Army general has publicly clashed with Trump in recent years, calling the president “a total fascist” and “the most dangerous person to this country.” Trump, who has vowed to use his authority to go after his critics, has already had Milley’s portrait taken down at the Pentagon and stripped him of his role on the National Infrastructure Advisory Council on Tuesday.
In anticipation of Trump potentially targeting Milley over personal grievances, Biden took the unusual step of issuing a preemptive pardon to the former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman in his final hours in office.
Milley has previously said he feared that Trump would use his authority to court-martial him if he won reelection, fueled entirely by vengeance.
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“He is a walking, talking advertisement of what he’s going to try to do,” Milley recently told Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward for his upcoming book. “He’s saying it and it’s not just him, it’s the people around him.”
A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.