Hey Marco Rubio and Glenn Greenwald, This Is the Real Problem With Milley, Trump, & Nuclear Weapons

[gratuitous]

6. DID Milley exceed his authority?

My reading on those staff meetings is that Gen. Milley wanted to be sure everyone on his team knew the protocol for launching a nuclear strike and that it would be scrupulously followed. That protocol includes notifying the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (at the time, Milley) that they had been ordered to strike with nuclear weapons. Milley didn't want any unpleasant surprises because the Trump administration had decided to do another end run around the rule they didn't like. Trump and his lackeys constantly broke protocol and took short-cuts on procedure when there was an objective they wanted to achieve. Violating the Emoluments Clause to line Trump's pockets is one thing; launching a nuclear missile is quite another.

As for his back-channel communications with the Chinese, I trust Milley's judgment. He could tell that China was getting alarmed about Trump's increasingly erratic behavior, and he also knew that he couldn't publicly soothe their concerns without undermining Trump. If we want to get really picky about "unofficial" contact with a foreign government, let's talk about Sen. Cotton and his 46 co-signers (one of whom was *gasp* Marco Rubio!) sending letters in 2015 to Iran to undermine the framework the Obama administration was working out with them.