The Pentagon on Monday removed a portrait of Gen. Mark A. Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from a corridor of the building filled with paintings of all of his predecessors.
The decision to take down the portrait was an early salvo by the new administration against a military establishment that President Trump has assailed for a variety of perceived offenses.
The portrait of the now retired General Milley went up last week in the last days of the Biden administration. Less than two hours after Mr. Trump took the oath of office, Pentagon officials had taken it down. A U.S. official said that “the White House” ordered the removal. The official declined to speak further.
Mr. Trump has called General Milley “a woke train wreck.” The president has complained in particular about the general’s calls to his Chinese counterpart during the waning weeks of Mr. Trump’s first term, an act the president, in a post on Truth Social, called “so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”
President Joseph R. Biden Jr. issued a pre-emptive pardon for General Milley before he left office.
Taking down the general’s portrait is unprecedented; the position of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is viewed as apolitical.
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