Bongino: If Milley warned China, he should be court-martialed

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley’s reported two phone calls with Chinese People’s Liberation Army Gen. Li Zuocheng near the end of the Trump administration are particularly egregious not necessarily because they took place, but because of the content therein, Dan Bongino argued on “Fox News Primetime.“

Bongino, host of Fox News’ “Unfiltered” told host Lawrence Jones that – should the allegations made by Washington Post journalists Robert Costa and Robert Woodward be proven true – the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff should be promptly ousted from his Biden administration role and court-martialed.

“The call isn’t the controversy – this is the White House doing the ‘little shiny red object’ [rhetoric]. It’s like saying, I have conversations with my wife Paula every day and then one day we have a conversation about robbing a bank: It’s not about talking to your wife [that is the problem],” he said. “Of course Milley talks to generals. It’s about the contents of the conversation. You think the White House is dumb and they don’t know this? We talk to generals all the time. Of course you do. The question is and the only question which the White House is successfully I think manipulating the media again on is what was the content of the call.”

PENTAGON DODGES QUESTIONS ON MILLEY PHONE CALLS: ‘I CAN’T SPEAK TO SPECIFICS’

Bongino said as a rule he is loathe to support releasing private presidential or executive branch transcripts – partly because they could engender distrust among other nations – but that in this case it may be warranted.

He and Jones noted that throughout Trump’s tenure, the news cycle was often rife with leaked transcripts that undermined Trump.

Bongino argued that the Milley-Li transcript could be shared confidentially with select lawmakers who then could determine if disciplinary action is warranted, or if Costa and Woodward’s writings are true.

“Did Milley say that he would issue them a warning that Chinese Communist Party if we were to attack? If he did that, it could be an act of treason – and this guy should be court-martialed for it,” Bongino said. “If he didn’t, he is going to be able to wiggle his way out of it but if he said that he is in a world of trouble.”

Regarding foreign phone conversations of note, Bongino pointed to the Democrats’ uproar over the fact then-incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn – himself also a military general – had conversations with a Russian counterpart regarding diplomatic issues.

He noted the call became a “cosmic controversy” that turned into an FBI investigation which resulted in Flynn being ousted from his role only weeks into his tenure.

“I find it kind of odd now that it’s the same scenario, yet it involves possible nuclear war and same lefties who condemned Mike Flynn for a phone call 1/1000 of the magnitude of this are all of a sudden trying to get Mark Milley a pass. Give me a break. I know you are frauds on the left side of the media. At least try to hide it sometimes,” Bongino continued. 

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Later in the interview, Bongino and Jones remarked that a surprising critic of Milley appeared in the form of Alexander Vindman, the former national security council adviser whom Democrats lauded during Trump’s impeachment proceedings.

Vindman has said Milley should resign if Costa’s book is true.

Bongino argued that Democrats truly don’t care about Vindman and whether he helped them in the past: 

“They will throw Vindman under the bus in a second. They don’t care about Vindman. Vindman, my caboose. He was just a useful tool for them,” he said.