Pentagon leaders face grilling over use of military against protesters

By Associated Press -July 9, 2020 10:30 AM

The Defense Department officials are scheduled to appear before the House Armed Services Committee.

The Pentagon's top leaders are going before Congress for the first time in months to face a long list of controversies, including their differences with Donald Trump over the handling of protests near the White House last month during unrest triggered by the killing of George Floyd in police custody.

The House hearing Thursday will provide the first congressional testimony by Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, since March 4, when they appeared to discuss the administration's defense policy proposal. That was before the full impact of the coronavirus pandemic became apparent and before nationwide civil unrest threw the Pentagon's relations with Trump into crisis.

Trump's push for an aggressive response to the civil unrest led to an extraordinary clash with Esper and Milley, who on June 1 accompanied the president when he walked from the White House to St. John's Church on Lafayette Square, where he held up a Bible for photographers. That day, a National Guard helicopter was flown at extremely low altitude to help disperse protesters from the capital's streets, prompting a Pentagon investigation into whether that was a proper use of military resources.

Esper drew Trump's ire for telling a Pentagon news conference that he opposed invoking the Insurrection Act to permit the president to use the armed forces to put down domestic civil unrest. Esper said he saw no need for such an extreme measure, a clear counterpoint to Trump's threat to use force.

https://americanindependent.com/pentagon-military-protests-police-violence-white-house-lafayette-square-defense-department/

This sure should be interesting, you know "bounties" on service men and woman by the Russian GRU...........or is the public going to get the gas light treatment answers .................