Michael Cohen said it…..
Donald Trump seldom gave direct orders…
He expressed ‘wishes’….
Then Defense Sec James Mattis , a retired Marine General , knows what ‘orders’ are….
He knows what ‘lawful ‘ orders are…
He also has been in combat….
As Defense Sec?
Mattis had to go back to his basic’s as a former US military officer and solder….
THAT moved him to ignore ‘wishes’, ‘suggestions’ and ‘orders’ that sometimes where NOT smart, right or even legal…
Amen….
Former Defense Secretary James Mattis declined to carry out orders from President Trump or otherwise limited his options in various attempts to prevent tensions with North Korea, Iran and Syria from escalating, The New Yorker reported Monday, the latest account of Trump’s own officials trying to check his worst instincts.
“The president thinks out loud. Do you treat it like an order? Or do you treat it as part of a longer conversation? We treated it as part of a longer conversation,” a former senior national security official told The New Yorker.
“We prevented a lot of bad things from happening.”
In 2017, following a series of North Korean ballistic missile tests, Trump ordered the Pentagon to begin removing the spouses and children of military personnel from South Korea, where the U.S. military has a base. An administration official told the magazine that “Mattis just ignored” the order.
In another instance in the fall of 2017, as White House officials were planning a private meeting at Camp David to develop military options for a possible conflict with North Korea, Mattis allegedly stopped the gathering from happening. He ignored a request from then-national security adviser H.R. McMaster to send officers and planners, according to a former senior administration official.
The accounts, included in a profile of national security adviser John Bolton, reveal that the former Marine Corps general routinely sought to downplay any potential conflicts across the globe.
Mattis resigned from his Pentagon position last December, one day after Trump announced that he would withdraw troops from Syria, a decision Mattis opposed.
The defense chief also sought to ward off possible conflicts in the Middle East….
Note…
This isn’t news, really….
There have been continual reports of Trump staff people ‘managing ‘ Trump to keep him from doing something stupid, illegal or plain dangerous ….
image….wsj.com