In book excerpts released 2nd May, former US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said that ex-US President Donald Trump had requested for protesters to be shot at.
According to Mark Esper: “The president sat in the Oval Office red-faced and complaining loudly about the protests underway in Washington over the police killing of a Black man.” “Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something? ” Trump is quoted as saying in Esper’s memoir, reported Axios news website.
The protests Esper mentions were in response to the police shooting of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020. Participants in the nationwide protests even battled with law enforcement officers.
The excerpt from Mark Esper’s statement appeared to back up prior claims that Trump was advocating for military intervention to quell escalating civil unrest.
According to sources reported by journalist Michael Bender in his book, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, had a dispute with Trump about employing the military to quell protesters while the President sought a greater response.
Similar to Esper’s account, Bender, too, had quoted Trump as saying: “Shoot them in the leg —or maybe the foot… but be hard on them!”
The US Park Police and National Guard fired tear gas and flashbangs to disperse protesters demonstrating outside the White House during the 2020 protests.
Esper was against invoking the Insurrection Act at the time, a rarely used 200-year-old law that allowed the military to be actively deployed within the country. Soon after, he was fired because of his attitude, which had enraged Trump.
Mark Esper’s book is to be launched on May 10th
The Pentagon has evaluated Esper’s book, which has been reviewed by generals and cabinet members. On May 10th, it will be launched.
According to Mark Esper’s book, there was a “surreal atmosphere in Trump’s inner circle, with the thought of troops opening fire on Americans hanging heavily in the air.”
“I had to figure out a way to walk Trump back without creating the mess I was trying to avoid,” he wrote in the memoir called ‘A Sacred Oath’.
Also Read: AFTER BEING BANNED FROM TWITTER, DONALD TRUMP DECIDES TO LAUNCH HIS SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE
