US revokes security clearance of former military chief Milley
The Pentagon announced on Tuesday that US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has also ordered an inquiry into the conduct of the ex-army head, who has earned the ire of the newly returned President Donald Trump.
Hegseth has directed the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General to open an inquiry into Milley's conduct to determine whether it is appropriate to reopen an assessment of Milley's military grade, the Pentagon said in a statement on Tuesday.
'Undermining the chain of command is corrosive to our national security,' Joe Kasper, the Defense Department chief of staff, said in a statement.
Milley's photo was removed from the Pentagon shortly after Trump was sworn into office. According to US news outlet Fox News, the second and last portrait of Milley will also be removed from the Pentagon.
Trump fired Milley earlier this month from the National Infrastructure Advisory Council amid growing animosity between the two.
In the aftermath of the attack on the Capitol on January 6 2021, Milley called Beijing to reassure China of US stability.
Trump described the phone call as 'an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been death'.
A former Trump appointee, Milley once told journalist Bob Woodward that the Republican leader was 'fascist to the core'.
Milley was among those to receive a preemptive pardon from former President Joe Biden on his last day in office, a move for which the 66-year-old former general has expressed gratitude.
Biden had said that the ex-military chief and others 'do not deserve to be the targets of unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions'.
Others receiving preemptive pardons for fear of reprisal from Trump included members of his own family, former Republican lawmaker Liz Cheney and former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci.
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