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Esper in his opening statement before the House Armed Services Committee seeks to emphasize the National Guard was not involved in clearing Lafayette Park: "The Guard did not advance on the crowd... The Guard remained in a static role" supporting law enforcement.
Milley in his opening statement quotes Lincoln, "a house divided," referring to "cohesion" as a "force multiplier" and "divisiveness" as a risk to the fighting strength of the U.S. military — which is how I have heard a lot of DOD folks discuss diversity efforts in recent days.
Are base names "symbols"? https://twitter.com/AaronMehta/status/1281278608019992576?s=20
Esper: "To the best of my recollection, I have no received a briefing that included the word 'bounty.'"
"If it was a credible, corroborated report that used those words, certainly it would have been brought to my attention by the chain of command for action."
"If it was a credible, corroborated report that used those words, certainly it would have been brought to my attention by the chain of command for action."
This is a weird line of questioning from @RepMikeTurner that seems to be leaning really heavily on the semantics of the word "bounty." https://twitter.com/KatieBoWill/status/1281282316187426816?s=20
. @RepJoeCourtney Australia's Channel 7 reporters who were assaulted by police during Lafayette clearing.
Esper: A free & open press is critical to the functioning of our democracy.
Milley, I gotta say remarkably, says he's not familiar with the incident. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/business/media/australia-reporters-police-protest.html
Esper: A free & open press is critical to the functioning of our democracy.
Milley, I gotta say remarkably, says he's not familiar with the incident. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/02/business/media/australia-reporters-police-protest.html
"We're going to get the bottom of all that, but I can assure the families" that the necessary force protection measures are in place, Milley says of the Russia AFG bounty story.
. @RepStefanik asks about Russian involvement in AFG generally.
Milley: We've known for years Russia involved in AFG. The Russians are not our friends & their involvement is worrisome. We are aware of the variety of intel you were briefed on this morning & we are pursuing that.
Milley: We've known for years Russia involved in AFG. The Russians are not our friends & their involvement is worrisome. We are aware of the variety of intel you were briefed on this morning & we are pursuing that.
More from this answer: https://twitter.com/PDShinkman/status/1281287715678564353?s=20
Esper and Milley say the DOD IG is taking a look at the after-action report on Guard activity during the protests — currently with @SecArmy — and that they expect to be able to transmit it to Congress early next week.
The original intelligence assessment about the Russian bounties "was not produced by a DOD intelligence agency," Esper said. (Which we knew, but obviously doesn't mean folks in DOD didn't have access to the information.)
Esper says DOD has launched an investigation into leaks: https://twitter.com/laraseligman/status/1281289968690909184?s=20
On the bounty intel: https://twitter.com/julianborger/status/1281294910327586816?s=20
Milley articulates something I've been hearing from a lot of intel & military folks about the bounty story:
The issue isn't what's being done at the tactical level—troops are protected— it's what may need to be done at the *strategic* level. More here: https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/06/russian-bounties-are-part-moscows-aid-taliban-current-and-former-intel-officials-say/166538/?oref=d-river
The issue isn't what's being done at the tactical level—troops are protected— it's what may need to be done at the *strategic* level. More here: https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/06/russian-bounties-are-part-moscows-aid-taliban-current-and-former-intel-officials-say/166538/?oref=d-river
Milley: "Don't think we're not doing anything, because that's not true."
Milley says he's recommended a commission to look at the bases named after Confederate generals (and a colonel), among other symbols of the Confederacy. Says symbols matter.
Trump has emphatically rejected renaming the bases, and even threatened to veto the NDAA over it.
Trump has emphatically rejected renaming the bases, and even threatened to veto the NDAA over it.
Sounds a bit like this stalled Army effort that I reported on yesterday? https://www.defenseone.com/politics/2020/07/army-was-reviewing-more-confederate-base-names-officials-reveal/166730/?oref=d-river
More Milley on this: https://twitter.com/paulmcleary/status/1281300008378212352?s=20
Emphasizes he was responding specifically as to whether he was briefed on a report including the word "bounty." https://twitter.com/laraseligman/status/1281301279692804097?s=20
Former intelligence officers tell me this would be particularly hard to prove — how do you prove that a particular battlefield casualty was a direct result of the bounty program and would not have happened if that incentive structure wasn't there? https://twitter.com/DefenseBaron/status/1281302268315414528?s=20
Milley points out that one of things they don't have is evidence that Russia *directed* bounties — as opposed to simply making payments on killed service members, as I understand the distinction? "That's a big deal. We don't have that level of fidelity yet."
And that's it for the day. Stand by for some ink on this.
