A Sacred Oath by Mark T. Esper

Author:Mark T. Esper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-03-28T00:00:00+00:00

Milley and I arrived and went first to the Situation Room, where an aide told us that the president wanted to see me in the Oval Office. I walked upstairs and into the anteroom, where his scheduler waved me straight in, with Milley in trail. Trump was behind the Resolute desk when I arrived, sitting straight up in his chair, and stern faced with his arms folded. Mark Meadows sat to his left. The room was quiet. I walked in and sat down in front of the president. Milley took the empty chair next to me. If I had any question as to whether Trump had seen my remarks, or at least been briefed on them, they vanished when I saw the look on his face.

Trump launched into a tirade almost immediately, questioning why I did what I did, why I said what I said, and accusing me of undermining him. “You betrayed me,” he yelled. “I’m the president, not you!” He glared and threw accusation after accusation at me as I sat stone-faced looking straight back at him. He said invocation of the Insurrection Act is “my call, not yours.” He shouted, “I’m the president. It’s my prerogative.” I stared him in the eye and agreed. He roared, “You took away my authority.” I held my gaze and disagreed. I responded in a flat tone and direct manner, “Mr. President, I didn’t take away your authority.” I told him that “I was simply stating my views and recommendation,” as I had before. He barked back, “That’s not your position to do.” Again, I replied, sitting up in my chair, “Mr. President, I didn’t say it was my position to do. I said it was my recommendation.” Trump grew even more flustered.

The president tried to make the case that the Insurrection Act was needed, once again proclaiming that “the protests are making us”—meaning him—“look weak.” I disagreed, responding with the same arguments I had given both on Monday and during the press conference. I said, “I do not believe anything that has happened requires invocation of the Insurrection Act. It would make matters worse and would be terrible for the country.”

Trump paused for a moment, and then said, “I can’t believe you held a press conference during the hearing.” I wasn’t expecting this one. A slight tilt of my head and squint of my eyes likely betrayed my surprise. The president was accusing me of purposefully holding the press conference to take national attention off the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on the FBI’s Russia investigation that began at 10:00 A.M., I would later learn. A former deputy attorney general was supposedly testifying before Senator Lindsey Graham. I wasn’t even aware the committee was meeting. But apparently, Trump thought something was going to happen that would validate his claims about the “Russia witch hunt” and I was interfering in his moment of vindication. I let this one go.

The president made another assertion—that I said the military should never be used, that I didn’t support employing the National Guard to aid in addressing civil unrest.

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