Trump-Milley feud played key role in classified documents case

The feud between former President Trump and the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, Gen. Mark Milley, played a key role in the historic indictment handed down last week over Trump’s alleged criminal mishandling of classified documents.

Key audio in the case captured Trump trying to prove his side of the story after a New Yorker article detailed Milley’s attempts to prevent the president from attacking Iran during his final days in the White House.

Trump claimed he had a document about a “plan of attack” on Iran that showed it was Milley’s idea, and he admitted he knew the document was secret and not declassified by him, contradicting some of his claims in the case. It’s unclear whether the document in question exists.

The episode highlights a tumultuous relationship that began when the former president tapped Milley as the Joint Chiefs chairman in late 2018. 

The public feud has largely been in one direction, with Trump fuming at Milley since leaving office. But while Milley has yet to publicly hit back against the former president, he has acknowledged regularly speaking on background with reporters. 

While Trump clashed with a number of his cabinet members and aides, the disagreements with Milley likely hurt more because of the military’s public prestige, said Peter Feaver, a professor of political science at Duke University focused on the military. 

“Trump and Milley had a particularly fractious relationship, as stormy as any in modern times,” said Feaver, who is close to Milley. “It probably stung former President Trump that a leader of an institution that the public held in high esteem … was describing him in adverse terms.”

Todd Blanche, the attorney representing Trump in the case, declined to comment on this story.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because this story involves a federal case, said Milley does not consider himself to be in an ongoing quarrel with Trump. 

“The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff does not feud with a president or a former president of the United States,” he said.

Trump, who is charged with 37 counts for mishandling classified documents and obstructing federal authorities from retrieving them, is set to be arraigned Tuesday in a Florida court. The former president has called special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation a politically motivated “witch hunt.”

Throughout his presidency, Trump repeatedly clashed with Milley, according to reporting that has largely emerged since he left office. 

During racial justice protests in 2020, Trump posed for a photo at St. John’s Church in Washington, D.C., along with Milley, who was wearing camouflage combat fatigues.

Milley later apologized for appearing in the photo op, which gave the impression of military approval. The photo was also criticized because police dispersed protesters with tear gas to clear the way for Trump. 

Milley reportedly expressed his frustrations over the photo in a meeting with Trump. He had also told the president privately he disagreed with sending in troops to quell the protests, reportedly leading to Trump screaming at him.

In his anger at the time, Milley was considering resigning but decided not to, according to the New York Times.

After the Jan. 6, 2021, rioting at the U.S. Capitol, Milley reportedly moved to limit Trump’s ability to conduct military strikes, concerned the president would go “rogue” and was not of sound mind.

After leaving office, Trump began to broadcast his anger with Milley, calling him a “dumbass” in one statement that also blasted him for the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.

Trump also began trying to cast the Joint Chiefs chairman as “unintelligent and untrustworthy,” according to sources who spoke to Robert Costa, the co-author of “Peril,” a book about the last days of Trump’s presidency.

The feud worsened last August after a book excerpt published in the New Yorker depicted the battle between Trump and Milley during the president’s final days at the White House.

After deciding not to resign in 2020, Milley pledged to “fight from the inside” against a president he saw as “doing great and irreparable harm” to the nation, according to the reporting. 

The excerpt also detailed how Milley worked aggressively to dissuade Trump from attacking Iran — a characterization Trump sought to dispel in a conversation that is now at the center of the federal case against the former president. 

A July 2021 recording, released this month, caught Trump speaking to a group of people, including a writer, at his Bedminster, N.J., club as he reportedly tried to prove his case that Milley was wrong.

“He said that I wanted to attack Iran. Isn’t that amazing?” Trump said, according to the audio first obtained by CNN. “I have a big pile of papers, this thing just came up. Look. This was him. They presented me this — this is off the record, but — they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him.”

The document Trump was referring to has yet to be found by his lawyers, but the conversation is cited in the indictment as evidence contradicting Trump’s public claims that he declassified all of the documents he kept.

Since reports initially emerged Trump held onto some 300 classified documents after leaving office, speculation has swirled about why. 

Feaver at Duke University Trump’s motivation may have been keeping documents that could help him score “a point against a critic.”

“That would be a possible explanation for why he might hold onto documents he shouldn’t hold onto,” said Feaver. “And it sounds like in this [Milley] case, it fits that pattern.”

The episode may also reflect Trump’s insecurity about his role as commander in chief, Feaver added.

“Most commanders in chief arrive in the office without really knowing much about the job,” he said. “And then most presidents grow in the job — but there’s not much evidence that President Trump grew in the job.”