In an interesting revelation of the events surrounding Jan. 6, 2021, former President Donald Trump’s ex-acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller recently said that the Jan. 6 Committee threatened to “make his life hell” if he continued claiming that Trump authorized the National Guard to protect the Capitol on that day.
NEW: Trump's Defense Secretary Chris Miller alleges the January 6 Committee threatened to 'make his life hell' if he didn't stop saying Trump authorized National Guard deployment before the Capitol riot.
Miller specifically implicates Liz Cheney in this intimidation effort,… pic.twitter.com/8XFm2qdqYQ
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) March 23, 2024
Miller spoke to the Daily Mail about when he would appear for television interviews to address Trump’s decision to call the National Guard to secure the Capitol on Jan. 6. The former acting Defense secretary said that after the interviews, the Jan. 6 Committee would subpoena him for additional testimony. He claimed that former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) oversaw the panel.
During an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity and Trump-era National Security official Kash Patel in June 2022, Miller said he “hit a nerve” with the committee.
“The two of us were on [the Fox News show] and the next day my lawyer got a call from the Jan. 6 staff director — I forgot exactly who it was — but basically saying, very legalistic: ‘Well, if your client has additional information he wants to share, we’d be happy to have him re-interviewed,” Miller told the outlet.
“It was more that latent threat of: ‘If you want to keep going on TV, we’re gonna drag you in here again for additional hours of hearing testimony.’ So that was the nature of that whole thing,” he added. “It was the latent threat of the government continuing to intrude into my life.”
While speaking with Fox News at the time, a Republican communications strategist said he wouldn’t be surprised if the committee threatened members of the mainstream media to stop speaking about the events of Jan. 6.
Miller said he was fearful of speaking about the events publicly and did not do so until recently.
“I wasn’t communicating with anybody, because I knew any interactions I had on it would resulting me having to … acknowledge that I’d been in communications with other people. And then that just sort of opens up a whole can of worms with the investigators that I just didn’t want to do,” Miller said.
