Trump’s Retribution Continues With Removal of General Milley’s Security Detail

In the last days of 2019, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and senior Pentagon officials gave President Trump a list of options for responding to Iranian-led violence in Iraq.

They included an extreme one — killing Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran’s most powerful commander — as almost an afterthought, convinced the president would not take it.

He did. On Jan. 3, 2020, the Iranian general was killed in a U.S. drone strike near Baghdad International Airport.

The fallout was immediate. Iranian groups put a price on General Milley’s head. He, along with Mr. Esper and the Central Command leader, Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., moved to the top of Iran’s retaliatory kill list, U.S. officials have said.

Now, a decision by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to remove General Milley’s security detail has raised alarm as President Trump seeks retribution against his perceived enemies at home.

Even Mr. Trump’s allies are concerned.

“I would encourage the president to revisit this,” Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas and the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on Wednesday.

“It’s possible that these people could be targeted by Iranian assassins in public where innocent bystanders could be injured,” Mr. Cotton said on Fox Business. “This could have a chilling effect on the people around the president right now, on giving him the advice that he needs in carrying out his decisions.”

Mr. Hegseth, who was confirmed last week, has spent his first days in office targeting transgender troops, diversity programs and Defense Department leaders who caught Mr. Trump’s ire.

In Mr. Trump’s first hours back in office, General Milley’s portrait was removed from a Pentagon hallway. Then late Tuesday, Mr. Hegseth announced that in addition to pulling the general’s security detail, he was revoking his security clearance and ordering an inspector general inquiry into his record.

A day later, a second portrait of the general was taken down from a different hallway at the Pentagon.

Sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday late morning, Mr. Esper’s portrait was also removed from the Pentagon wall honoring former Army secretaries. A portrait of Mr. Esper as defense secretary was still up as of Wednesday midafternoon.

It was unclear what would become of the portrait of Gen. Jim Mattis, who was the first defense secretary during the first Trump administration and also ran afoul of the president. Mr. Mattis’s visage was still hanging in the hallway honoring defense secretaries on Wednesday afternoon.

Mr. Trump seemed to adore his former senior military and defense leaders when his first term began and often referred to the men as “my generals.”

“I see my generals — those generals, they’re going to keep us so safe,” Mr. Trump said in January 2017 at a lunch with lawmakers after his inauguration. He appointed four of them to senior positions in his government, the most of any modern-day president.

Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn was his national security adviser for 22 days until he resigned after reports that he had lied about secret conversations with the Russian ambassador. Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster was Mr. Trump’s next national security adviser, lasting about 15 months until he ran afoul of Mr. Trump over policies on Russia, Afghanistan and Syria.

Gen. John Kelly, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, was a strict disciplinarian who would eventually call for the president to be removed from office using the 25th Amendment. General Mattis resigned in protest of Mr. Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria and rejection of international alliances.

During the first Trump administration, the generals were often viewed as tempering many of the president’s more mercurial impulses. General Mattis began his term reassuring Iraq that, contrary to Mr. Trump’s musings, the United States would not seize its oil. He pushed against Mr. Trump’s suggestion that the United States pull out of NATO.

But General Mattis never angered Mr. Trump the way General Milley did.

During General Milley’s early days on the job, Mr. Trump praised his “brilliance and fortitude.” But then he, too, began a slide in the president’s estimation.

Their irrevocable split is rooted in General Milley’s decision to apologize for inserting himself into politics when he walked alongside Mr. Trump in 2020, through Lafayette Square near the White House, for a photo op after the authorities used tear gas and rubber bullets to clear the area of peaceful protesters.

“I should not have been there,” General Milley said later. “My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics.”

Mr. Trump’s supporters have also attacked General Milley over his assurances to his Chinese counterpart during the first Trump administration that the United States was not seeking to strike China, or trigger a military crisis.

General Milley, 66, was promoted to chairman of the Joint Chiefs by Mr. Trump in 2019. At the time, the president was impressed with his military record and his bearing. But he quickly soured on him. A book published by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig, “I Alone Can Fix It,” reported that General Milley was worried that Mr. Trump might attempt to stage a coup after he lost the 2020 election. General Milley also issued a statement condemning the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.

General Milley so angered Mr. Trump that by the time the general’s four-year term was over, the president was suggesting on social media that he should be killed. On Truth Social, he called General Milley a “woke train wreck” and complained about the general’s calls with his Chinese counterpart. “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”

In an apt forecast, he added: “To be continued!”

Now the “to be continued” part is here. General Milley is losing a security detail, a safeguard that he and Mr. Esper kept after they left government because of the Iranian threats.

Last week, Mr. Trump has also revoked the security detail of John R. Bolton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and an Iran adviser, Brian Hook, who have also faced ongoing threats from Iran.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, was among those who have urged Mr. Trump to rethink his decision on the security details.

And Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts and a member of the Armed Services Committee, said in a letter to Mr. Hegseth on Wednesday that “you appear to be abusing your power to weaponize the government against the president’s political enemies.”

Mr. Hegseth has asked the Pentagon’s inspector general to determine whether “it is appropriate” to review the rank upon retirement for General Milley, essentially asking whether the general can be demoted.

Mr. Trump fired the Pentagon’s inspector general amid a purge of inspectors general last week and installed his own, who will presumably preside over Mr. Hegseth’s requested review.

“It is reckless that your actions could pave the way for Iran’s revenge,” Ms. Warren wrote. She added: “Any reopening of General Milley’s administratively determined retired grade requires prior notice to Congress, due process for General Milley and, in the case of any redetermination, the advice and consent of the Senate.”

Amid continued threats of retribution from Mr. Trump against his enemies, General Milley received a pre-emptive pardon from President Joseph R. Biden Jr. hours before he left office last week.