Name: Former acting DOD boss blames Donald Trump's speech for inciting riot
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Former acting DOD boss blames Donald Trump's speech for inciting riot

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&nbsp;Tuesday, Sep 13th 2022| 44Former Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller has come forward to deny being one of 's 'hatchet men' – and blames the president's Jan. 6th speech for causing the Capitol riot.Miller, whose agency has come under fire for delays in scrambling National Guard forces to the Capitol when it was under attack, calls it 'definitive' that Trump's speech triggered the day's events. He stops short of saying Trump knew what would result from his words, where he urged supporters to 'fight like hell.'&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'Would anybody have marched on the Capitol, and tried to overrun the Capitol, without the president's speech? I think it's pretty much definitive that wouldn't have happened,' said Miller. 'It seems cause-and-effect,' he told on Showtime.'The question is, did he know he was enraging people to do that? I don't know,' said Miller.Miller gave the interview from inside a church. A clip featured dramatic music as he described the events of Jan. 6th. He was elevated after Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper just days after the election.It was one of multiple steps that had some Trump critics wondering about the president's intentions while he was seeking to overturn the election.&nbsp;Miller says there was never a risk of a military coup.&nbsp;The head of the D.C. National Guard and the former head of the U.S. Capitol Police each testified about difficulties getting the Pentagon to sign off on rushing the Guard to the Capitol after a violent mob began clashing with police, with a delay that ran longer than three hours.&nbsp;&nbsp; Miller subordinates were on group phone calls where the officials said the Pentagon raised concerns about the 'optics' of sending the Guard to protect the Capitol.&nbsp;Maj. Gen. William Walker of the D.C. Guard testified to the Senate earlier this month: 'At 1:49pm I received a frantic call from then Chief of U.S. Capitol Police, Steven Sund, where he informed me that the security perimeter at the Capitol had been breached by hostile rioters,'&nbsp;'Chief Sund, his voice cracking with emotion, indicated that there was a dire emergency on Capitol Hill and requested the immediate assistance of as many Guardsmen as I could muster.'shares'Immediately after the 1:49pm call with Chief Sund, I alerted the Army Senior Leadership of the request,' Walker says in written testimony. 'The approval for Chief Sund's request would eventually come from the Acting Secretary of Defense and be relayed to me by Army Senior Leaders at 5:08pm – 3 hours and 19 minutes later.'Miller responded in the interview: 'It comes back to understanding how the military works—this isn't a video game, it's no.'&nbsp;He rejected claims about Trump's military personnel moves to bring in loyalists in the final weeks of his term.'There was a lot of concern that we were just some sort of Trump hatchet men coming in to do heinous things to the Department of Defense, which couldn't be further from the truth,' he said. He also said he would have stepped down before carrying out any unlawful orders.'I knew that I was not going to cross any of those lines, and if asked, I would resign,' he said. 'If it's antithetical to the Constitution or the Uniform Code of Military Justice, it's an illegal order and you don't follow it.'&nbsp;Trump was acquitted in the Senate of 'incitement of insurrection' during impeachment trial following the MAGA riot.Share what you thinkThe comments below have not been moderated.The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.We are no longer accepting comments on this article.Published by Associated Newspapers LtdPart of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday &amp; Metro Media Group&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

&nbsp;Tuesday, Sep 13th 2022| 44Former Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller has come forward to deny being one of 's 'hatchet men' – and blames the president's Jan. 6th speech for causing the Capitol riot.Miller, whose agency has come under fire for delays in scrambling National Guard forces to the Capitol when it was under attack, calls it 'definitive' that Trump's speech triggered the day's events. He stops short of saying Trump knew what would result from his words, where he urged supporters to 'fight like hell.'&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;'Would anybody have marched on the Capitol,...

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Former acting DOD boss blames Donald Trump's speech for inciting riot

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