{"id":28206,"date":"2020-06-03T23:01:48","date_gmt":"2020-06-03T23:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/uncategorized\/2020\/06\/03\/handling-of-street-protests-creates-crisis-for-pentagon-boss\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T06:18:38","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T06:18:38","slug":"handling-of-street-protests-creates-crisis-for-pentagon-boss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/news\/2020\/06\/03\/handling-of-street-protests-creates-crisis-for-pentagon-boss\/","title":{"rendered":"Handling of street protests creates crisis for Pentagon boss"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/atype-video-jwplayer>
With National Guardsman deployed around the White House amid protests over the killing of George Floyd, top Dept. of Defense officials went into the streets.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Defense Secretary Mark Esper is facing the most politically charged crisis of his tenure, criticized for calling protester-filled streets a military \u201cbattle space\u201d and accused of failing to keep the military out of politics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, 11 months into the job, Esper is seeing his relationship with President Donald Trump tested by the storm over the police killing of George Floyd and Esper\u2019s urging of caution in the use of military force. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Esper, an Army veteran and former Army secretary, has sometimes subtly pushed back on Trump, including when the president intervened in the military justice system last year to pardon two soldiers accused of war crimes. But he has stayed closely aligned with the president\u2019s national security policies and kept in his good graces. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Wednesday, Esper publicly distanced himself from Trump\u2019s threats<\/a> to use the full force of the military to quell street protests around the country, emphatically arguing against invoking the two-centuries-old Insurrection Act, which would allow Trump to use active-duty troops in a law enforcement role. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The possibility of using the Insurrection Act<\/a>, which has not been invoked since the 1992 rioting in Los Angeles, had been discussed in the White House but never explicitly proposed publicly by Trump. The president has suggested he would use all available military force, however, if state governors couldn\u2019t stop the violence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Insurrection Act should be invoked, Esper told reporters, \u201conly in the most urgent and dire of situations.\u201d He declared, \u201cWe are not in one of those situations now.\u201d Aides emphasized later that Esper is not opposed to using the military to support federal and state law enforcement agencies when asked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In another sign of the unsettled thinking on troop use, Esper on Wednesday overturned an earlier Pentagon decision <\/a>to send a couple hundred active-duty soldiers home from the Washington area. They had been flown in earlier in the week from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, as a backup force in the event that street violence escalated. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy told The Associated Press that the reversal came after Esper attended a meeting at the White House, and after other internal Pentagon discussions, but it was not immediately clear whether Esper met with Trump or what triggered the reversal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked Wednesday about Esper\u2019s standing with Trump, the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, offered something less than a ringing endorsement. \u201cIf he loses confidence in Secretary Esper, I\u2019m sure you all will be the first to know.\u201d Pressed on this point, she added: \u201cAs of right now, Secretary Esper is still Secretary Esper and should the president lose faith, we will all learn about that in the future.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"President
President Donald Trump walks from the gates of the White House to visit St. John’s Church across Lafayette Park Monday, June 1, 2020, in Washington. (Patrick Semansky\/AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The trouble for Esper came into fuller focus on Monday as he strolled out of the White House in a Trump entourage that made its way to nearby St. John\u2019s Episcopal Church for a photo op featuring Trump hoisting a Bible. Afterward, critics pounced on Esper, saying he had allowed himself to be used as a political prop. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

James Miller, a top Pentagon policy official during the Obama administration, accused Esper of violating his oath of office by failing to oppose the use of police force to clear Trump\u2019s path to the church. The clearing operation violated the protesters\u2019 First Amendment right to assemble peacefully, Miller said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Esper said he was not aware of the police clearing operation and did not know he was heading into a photo op. He said he understood he was going to view damage at the church and to interact with National Guard troops in the area. He was accompanied by Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. <\/p>\n\n\n\t