Esper book says Trump wanted to court-martial retired officers

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump wanted to court-martial two prominent retired military officers for their perceived slights and disloyalty, his former defense secretary Mark Esper alleges in a new book, the latest insider account to raise claims about the combative commander in chief and his attempts to upend government institutions.

Trump, Esper recounts in “A Sacred Oath,” had developed a disdain for Stanley Mcchrystal and William Mcraven, popular and influential leaders who, in retirement, criticized the president. When Trump informed Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, of his wish to see Mcchrystal and Mcraven court-martialed, the two Pentagon leaders “jumped to their defense,” Esper writes, arguing that both completed distinguished military careers and that taking such action would be “extreme and unwarranted.”

“Doing this ‘will backfire on you, Mr. President,’ we said,” Esper writes. “The discussion went back and forth a little while longer in the Oval Office, with Milley finally figuring out a way to get the president to back down by promising that he would personally call the officers and ask them to dial it back.”

The alleged episode highlights Esper’s often uneasy tenure in Trump’s Cabinet, a fraught 15 months when, according to his memoir, he tried to be a guardrail on Trump’s most alarming and inappropriate impulses.

In an interview, Esper said Trump’s desire to punish Mcchrystal and Mcraven was “obviously disconcerting” and that he considers the two men to be heroes.

Mcchrystal, an Army Ranger whom President Barack Obama famously ousted as the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, called Trump “immoral” in an interview with ABC News.

Mcraven, who under Obama devised the operation resulting in Osama bin Laden’s death and who went to serve as the UT System chancellor from 2015 to 2018, accused Trump in an opinion piece of having “embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage and, worst of all, divided us as a nation.”

Mcchrystal and Mcraven couldn’t be reached for comment. Milley’s office declined to comment.

Trump’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment. The former president previously has criticized Esper in response to questions about the book, calling him a “stiff” and a “lightweight.”