General Milley Should Sue Trump for DefamationEvery deterrent to Trump's malevolent delusions is urgent
Former President Donald Trump has accused former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, of treason deserving the death penalty on his social platform Truth Social, which is defamation per se. The provocation was Gen. Milley’s constitutionally irreproachable assurance to China, during Mr. Trump’s multiple panicked, frenzied endeavors to overturn the 2020 presidential election by force, violence, intimidation, and fraud, that war from the United States was not in the offing. Gen. Milley rightly feared that Mr. Trump might unconstitutionally initiate conflict with China in hopes of saving his presidency. After all, Mr. Trump had pontificated on July 23, 2019, “Then I have Article 2, where I have the right to do anything I want as president.” Mr. Trump’s daily vandalization of the Constitution was notorious, including usurpation of the congressional war power and the power of the purse, defiance of hundreds of congressional subpoenas, and neglect to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. The same constitutional concern reportedly led Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger to direct the military to ignore any instructions lacking his signature received directly from the White House during President Richard Nixon’s Watergate travails. Bruce Fein's Pioneering Lyceum is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Gen. Milley acted well within his constitutional discretion in approaching China. A military officer is required to disobey a clearly illegal order. Thus, Gen. Michael Hayden and Ret. Army Lt. General Mark Hertling opined that the military would not obey orders from President Trump to torture or murder suspected terrorists. An order from President Trump to Gen. Milley to attack China would have been clearly unconstitutional and illegal under the Declare War Clause. Gen. Milley rightfully worried that Mr. Trump’s rashness, instability, and uncontrollable rage over his election defeat might cause China to take preemptive measures against the United States absent Gen. Milley’s assurances. Mr. Trump defamed Gen. Milley with actual malice in fuming on his social media platform, “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH! A war between China and the United States could have been the result of this treasonous act.” Trump’s treason accusation was flagrantly false. The crime is defined in Article 3 of the Constitution as “levying war” against the United States or in “adhering to their enemies.” Mr. Trump’s assertion that Gen. Milley’s actions might have triggered a war with China is absurd. Gen. Milley was seeking to diminish, not heighten, the risk of war between the two rivals by making clear the United States would not attack. A false accusation of crime like treason is defamatory per se. Since Gen. Milley would qualify as a public official or public figure, proof that Mr. Trump knew his accusation was false or acted in reckless disregard as to whether it was true or not would be required to establish liability under the First Amendment. Mr. Trump is probably clueless about the definition of treason. His accusation was at least reckless. Gen. Milley’s compensatory damages for a loss of reputation might be modest because Trump’s lifelong history of monumental prevarications. He is the greatest liar in the history of the species by orders of magnitude. The Washington Post identified 30, 573 during Mr. Trump’s four years in the White House. A New York judge has found that Mr. Trump’s business valuations were complete fabrications. Mr. Trump is the sole person on the planet who could make Congressman George Santos (R-NY) seem relatively honest. As opposed to compensatory damages, punitive damages against Trump could be stiff. He was actuated by spite and ill-will; and the need to deter Mr. Trump from repetition is infinite. Mr. Trump is the greatest danger to the Republic and the rule of law since the Civil War. Nothing should be spared in seeking his ouster from public life and exclusion from public office. While less urgent than prosecuting the outstanding 91 felony counts against Mr. Trump in four jurisdictions, a complementary defamation suit by Gen. Milley would strike a blow for the Constitution and against its chief vandal. *Bruce Fein was associate deputy attorney general under President Reagan and is author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy |