Former Secretary of Defense Chris Miller Lied to Congress on the Most Critical Topic of His Testimony

What Donald Trump was doing in the afternoon and evening of January 5—and who he met with—continues to be the most critical and lied-about insurrection mystery. And Chris Miller lied about it.

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Introduction

The most frequently lied about subject in the ongoing federal criminal investigation into the January 6 insurrection is who was meeting at the White House and at Trump International Hotel on January 5 (“Insurrection Eve”) and what they discussed. The former acting secretary of defense, Chris Miller, has now lied on this subject as well, not to media but Congress—upping the stakes for resolving this mystery considerably.

In late January, Vanity Fair reported at length about a January 5 meeting at the White House involving then-president Donald Trump; the then acting secretary of defense, Miller; and an extraordinarily controversial Trump sycophant who had recently been installed at the Pentagon and is now widely considered to have been a significant national security threat in that role, Kash Patel. Patel had previously served as the right-hand man of Devin Nunes as Nunes worked with foreign nationals to try to steal the 2020 presidential election; in that role, Patel was accused of leaking classified intel for purely partisan purposes, something he would again be accused of at the Pentagon.

Vanity Fair couldn’t possibly have been clearer about the circumstances of the Trump-Miller-Patel meeting that occurred at the White House on January 5. According to the magazine’s report:

1. The meeting at the White House was on the subject of “Iran”;

2. while the three men were together, Trump suddenly changed the subject to the coming joint session of Congress and his speech at the White House Ellipse;

3. as the men spoke at the White House, Trump raised the issue of deploying the U.S. military to engage in a domestic police action on January 6, asking how many soldiers the Pentagon would “turn out” into the streets of Washington on that date;

4. Miller told Trump, during this in-person conversation, that the Pentagon would only be “turning out” National Guard troops if District of Columbia officials made an official request to that effect;

5. Trump told Miller that “you”—meaning the Pentagon—will “need 10,000 people [troops]” to keep the January 6 events at both the White House Ellipse and the U.S. Capitol secure; and

6. Miller was certain that this meeting occurred in the “evening” of January 5 and that the date was indeed January 5, as the president (in the summary provided by Vanity Fair) asked Miller “how many troops the Pentagon planned to turn out the following day” (emphasis supplied).

When the Vanity Fair reporter who had been embedded with Miller, Patel, and fellow Trump sycophant Ezra Cohen-Watnick expressed incredulity at the circumstances and content of this January 5 conversation at the White House, Miller said, “No, I’m not talking bullshit. He [Trump] said that.” Miller went on to give the reporter for Vanity Fair numerous direct quotes from his January 5 meeting with the president, adding, “That’s what he [Trump] said. Swear to God.”

Miller Changes His Story in Congressional Testimony

In his prepared opening statement before the House Oversight Committee, Miller told Congress that he never went to the White House on January 5. Per his new story,

[President Trump] had no [involvement in the response] with respect to the Department of Defense efforts on January 6. On [the evening of] January 3, in a meeting at the White House with the President and several others regarding numerous unrelated topics, the [DC] Mayor’s request for National Guard support was discussed for less than a minute. The President said to give the Mayor [Muriel Bowser] the support she requested. I will reiterate that we were already committed to giving that support and the matter was not discussed that evening (or at any time) in the context of seeking or needing the President’s approval. On the afternoon of January 5, I received a call from the President in connection with a rally by his supporters that day at Freedom Plaza. The President asked if I was watching the event on television. I replied that I had seen coverage of the event. He then commented that “they” were going to need 10,000 troops the following day. The call lasted fewer than thirty seconds and I did not respond substantively, and there was no elaboration. I took his comment to mean that a large force would be required to maintain order the following day.

…

I am unaware of any briefing or any other discussions [Trump] may have had with any other government officials or his advisors regarding law enforcement preparations for January 6.

Whereas the exhaustive Vanity Fair report on Miller’s early-January actions had been published on January 22—meaning that Miller gave quotes for the report to someone who had been embedded with him well before then, perhaps only a matter of days after the insurrection—Miller’s congressional testimony came in mid-May, over four months after the events of January 6. Any judge, jury, or lay observer would expect that Miller’s statements in January would be far more accurate than his remarks many months later.

This is especially true given that other components of Chris Miller’s testimony, as the Washington Post has now reported, constituted dramatic and clearly political motivated retractions of prior statements, with the Post noting that Miller had—despite previously assigning responsibility to Trump for the January 6 insurrection—“suddenly back[ed] off blaming [Trump] for [the] Capitol riot.” The Post further noted that, in a startling and unusual moment, Miller chose to elide from his spoken remarks to Congress key words that members of Congress knew he’d typed on the page before him (emphasis supplied):

Miller’s opening statement was previewed Tuesday evening. In it, he stated that although he couldn’t offer an official conclusion about Trump’s culpability, “I stand by my prior observation that I personally believe his comments encouraged the protestors that day.” What resulted in the hearing was plenty of parsing about exactly what that meant. Did he truly believe Donald Trump had incited the mob that stormed the Capitol that day? Miller, notably, did not include that particular statement in his oral opening remarks. Such remarks are often distilled down because of time constraints, but this was arguably the most newsworthy section of his prepared statement, and Miller didn’t say it out loud.

So how did Miller’s prepared, apparently politically minded mid-May statement differ from his unscripted, candid remarks to an embedded Vanity Fair reporter sometime in mid-January? The key changes are these ten:

1. Miller now puts his White House meeting on January 3, 2021, not January 5;

2. he now puts his discussion with Trump about Iran on January 3, not January 5;

3. he demotes his formerly in-person, lengthy January 5 White House meeting to a phone call lasting “fewer than thirty seconds”;

4. while he moves Trump’s remarks about Mayor Bowser to January 3, he keeps the former president’s statement about “10,000 troops” on January 5;

5. he underscores (suggesting a clear memory of these events, and thus, presumably, a clear memory of them back in January) that the “10,000 troops” statement was made on January 5, as this remark by the then-president was made (Miller says) regarding events Trump anticipated would occur “the following day [January 6]”;

6. he now indicates that he had no “substantive” conversation with Trump at any time on January 5, as his response to Trump’s statement about “10,000 troops” was (according to him) not in any way substantive;

7. he adds a new conversation on January 5 between him and the then-president regarding a Stop the Steal rally being held at Freedom Plaza that day (January 5);

8. he places this conversation about a Freedom Plaza event Miller says was ongoing at the time on the afternoon of January 5, not the evening of January 5, though the bulk of the rally was to be held in the evening of January 5 (and we know that Trump spent midday at a lunch with Vice President Mike Pence; see below);

9. Miller now puts the total amount of conversation he had with then-president Trump about any topic even conceivably relating to the January 6 insurrection at less than ninety seconds across two days (these being January 3 and January 5), with Miller making no substantive responses on any such issues during the shorter of these two conversations (January 5); and

10. whereas Miller initially said that Trump told him “you” (the Pentagon) would need “10,000 troops,” he now says that the then-president actually said “they” would need “10,000 troops,” which could only be read as referring to either members of Congress or those of 2020 his voters who planned to attend his speech at the White House Ellipse on January 6.

Why It Matters

As Proof has reported across dozens of articles, the most lied-about events of the entire insurrection timeline are two simultaneous—possibly video-conferenced—meetings held on the evening of January 5, one at the White House and one at Trump’s “private residence” at Trump International Hotel. Chris Miller’s mid-January statements to the media placed him at the White House during the former meeting on the evening of January 5; his new statement removes him from the picture altogether. Of the (bare-minimum) 25 members of Trump’s inner circle who attended one of the two January 5 meetings in question, all of the following have lied about either their attendance or on the subject of their conduct at the meeting:

1. Donald Trump Jr.

2. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL)

3. Rudy Giuliani

4. Michael Flynn

5. Eduardo Bolsonaro (son of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro)

6. Corey Lewandowski

7. Peter Navarro

8. Charles Herbster

9. Daniel Beck

10. David Bossie

{Note: Of those listed here, only Bossie’s inclusion is uncertain. Herbster places Bossie at the Trump International Hotel meeting, but Bossie denies it by implying that Herbster is senile; Bossie calls Herbster a “nice old guy” in the context of saying “I don’t know why he would have [placed me at the meeting].” In fact, Herbster is now running for governor of Nebraska with the aid of Bossie’s lobbying partner Lewandowski as one of his “top advisers”, and while Bossie now says he was at his office on January 5, not Trump International, he’s provided no corroboration for this claim—despite many other members of Trump’s inner circle having now provably lied on the very same subject, including Lewandowski himself. Noteworthy as well is that Herbster subsequently edited on Facebook his roster of the individuals who attended the Trump International Hotel meeting—removing Giuliani’s name—but did not remove Bossie’s.}

What is particularly troubling is that among those meeting at the White House on the evening of January 5 were not just Trump, Bolsonaro, and Ivanka Trump, but also—along with some still-unknown others—Rogan O’Handley, a far-right internet agitator who left the White House meeting to go directly to the very Freedom Plaza “Stop the Steal” event that Chris Miller now says he spoke to Donald Trump about by phone.

Miller’s new version of events removes both him and, as importantly, the controversial Kash Patel from being present at the White House while (a) the Trumps were receiving a corrupt foreign national who subsequently lied about the purpose of his presence in the United States (according to a subsequent statement by Michael Lindell), (b) Trump was apparently meeting with organizers of the very insurrectionist event that Miller now says he spoke to Trump about, and (c) a concurrent meeting was being held at Trump International which there is every reason to believe was video-conferenced to the White House event and involved at least two men—Adam Piper and (by phone) Ali Alexander—who coordinated events comprising a violent insurrection on January 6.

{Note: As previously reported by Proof, Alexander spoke directly with Trump presidential adviser Kimberly Guilfoyle, who was at Trump International Hotel at the time with her boyfriend Don Jr., and was also in charge of the White House’s coordination the January 6 Stop the Steal events, using her aide Caroline Wren, among others, as her primary agent.}

Why Did Chris Miller Lie to Congress (or Vanity Fair)?

As a former criminal investigator who worked in the federal criminal justice system in D.C., I ask the same question here that not only any criminal investigator would ask but frankly any layperson too: “Why does every member of Trump’s inner circle feel the need to lie and/or dissemble about these two specific meetings on Insurrection Eve?”

It is not merely the roster of attendees that had consistently been lied about, but the topics discussed, the duration of the meetings, and even the initial purpose of either event being convened. Any observer would presume that these matters have been lied about because the truth is damaging to all parties concerned, though—given the fact that a federal criminal investigation is ongoing, and therefore any lies told now will ultimately out (possibly with criminal consequences attached) should they be repeated to federal agents—one imagines the person being protected by these lies isn’t just each attendee themselves, but the leader of the GOP and (on January 6) the nation: Trump.

Miller’s lies are particularly insidious because there’s so much about his conduct on and before January 6 that he cannot or will not explain.

He cannot or will not explain why Michael Flynn’s brother was promoted on the spot to a decision-marking role on January 6 when he was in fact outside the proper chain of command for the deployment of National Guard troops in Washington on that day. Nor will he explain why the Pentagon subsequently lied about Charles Flynn’s role in the events of January 6.

He told Vanity Fair in January 2021 that “initial reports on the anticipated crowd size [for Trump’s Ellipse speech] were all over the map, anywhere from 5,000 to 40,000”, but does not explain why—after the National Park Service changed its crowd estimate to “30,000” on January 4, and he issued an order that he was to be notified immediately if the crowd swelled beyond that point—he wasn’t notified once the crowd surpassed 30,000 well before noon on January 6. Indeed, he was not informed of any issue until hours later, suggesting that either his direct order had been ignored by a subordinate (for instance, either of the two Trump sycophants the president had installed beneath him, Kash Patel or Cohen-Watnick) or the order was never given in the first instance. America still doesn’t know which.

But what we do know, now, is that Chris Miller hasn’t been honest with the American people about his actions on January 3, January 5, or January 6. And this is exactly why Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) is now calling for a Pentagon investigation of Miller.

{Note: Miller says he called for such an investigation himself in January, but the veracity of this claim—or the status of any such Pentagon investigation—remains unknown as of this writing.}

Why January 3 Matters Too

While Miller may be trying to back out of any involvement in pre-insurrection debate or planning on Insurrection Eve, he couldn’t have picked a worse day (January 3) to relocate his chat with Trump about January 6 logistics. As Proof has recounted in too many articles to link to all of them here, the White House spent January 3 coordinating speakers for Trump’s Ellipse speech via White House political director Brian Jack and event coordinator Katrina Pierson but also, far more importantly, contacting the co-organizers of the Stop the Steal “movement” to discuss creating a bridge between Trump’s event and a march on the Capitol—specifically, by having Ali Alexander and Alex Jones coordinate with politicized, pro-Trump components within the U.S. Secret Service to ensure that the two agitators were escorted from Trump’s “VIP area” at the Ellipse (which was also open to as least one now-arrested Oath Keeper insurrectionist leader, Jessica Watkins) to “the place where they [the White House] wanted [Stop the Steal] to start the march” on the U.S. Capitol, per a recorded statement by Alex Jones.

For Miller to now put himself at the White House discussing—albeit, or so he claims, for less than sixty seconds—the security posture of the federal government on January 6 underlines that the Trump White House was coordinating with insurrectionists even as it was aware of the possible national security threats such insurrectionists’ planned events could bring to Washington on January 6; indeed, Trump himself was so aware of the danger of such events that he raised the subject directly with his Pentagon chief. He nevertheless went on to do everything within his power to incite the Ellipse mob.

It was also approximately on January 3 that Vice President Mike Pence informed the president that he would not be interfering in the January 6 joint session—meaning that Trump reacted to this news by (a) tightening his political team’s coordination with dangerous agitators like Alexander and Jones, and (b) checking with the Pentagon to get a better sense of what the Trumpists’ security situation would be on January 6. This gives some indication, perhaps, of the sort of conversations that might have occurred both at the White House and at Trump International Hotel on January 5.

{Note: According to reports by Reuters and the New York Times, while Pence told Trump on both January 5 (over lunch) and the morning of January 6 (in the Oval Office) that he would not be interfering in the joint session of Congress (see here and here), the Times reports that in the “several days” (note the plural) preceding January 5—meaning, at a minimum, January 2, January 3, and January 4, and possibly before—Pence was doing “a delicate dance, seeking…to convey to the president that he [did] not have the authority to overturn the results of the election…” While the Times notes Pence was conveying this information while also trying to “placate” the president, it is clear that by January 3, 2021, the information Trump had in his possession was that his Vice President almost certainly would not be stopping the joint session of Congress—meaning this would only occur if the crowd Trump was convening were to do so.}

Media Won’t Report on January 5, and the FBI Won’t Act on It

Other than here at Proof, almost no U.S. media outlets are reporting on the January 5 meetings at the White House and Trump International. While the Associated Press did so tangentially while reporting on another matter, the focus of all media attention sits so squarely and unthinkingly on January 6 itself—though criminal investigations always seek first to create a timeline of events leading up to a criminal act, rather than obsessing over the date of the crime exclusively—that even Congressional oversight hearings that have been inspired by media coverage of the insurrection, citing it often, continue this trend by centering all questions and lines of inquiry on Insurrection Day.

Worse still, the FBI has implicitly encouraged this ham-fisted approach—despite the Bureau knowing it inadequate to the task of investigating a complex fact-pattern like this one—by giving no public, private, or semi-public (leaked) indication it is looking at any events or even any defendants whose relevant actions occurred prior to January 6.

In consequence of all this—and the longstanding inability of members of Congress to agree on even the barest principles undergirding a prospective January 6 Commission (though this may have changed within just the last 48 hours, see the news here)—the sense among the general public is that the entirety of the insurrection timeline is now contained within just two events: (1) a January 6 speech by Donald Trump at the White House Ellipse, and (2) a January 6 march on the Capitol coordinated by the Stop the Steal “movement.” Though of course any coordination between the White House and the Stop the Steal organizers would have occurred prior to January 6; and though we know the key dates in this respect (beyond Trump’s meeting with Stop the Steal co-organizer Roger Stone at Mar-a-Lago in late December) were January 3 and January 5, the two days Trump’s former Pentagon chief says he spoke directly with the president; discussion of these synchronicities and oft-lied-about secret meetings is nonexistent outside mentions of them by the Omaha World Herald and Alabama Political Reporter.

{Note: By comparison, Brazil’s Congress convened a commission in response to the reporting at Proof, as detailed in the March 6 and March 8 entries in this publication’s official history.}

For now, there’s nothing for concerned Americans to do but to add Chris Miller’s lies to a mountain of similar ones told about the same dates, same topics, same events.

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