Yesterday, a major story broke in which Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was revealed to have called the Chinese military to relay a promise to provide advance information of any coming attack. That was ostensibly done to combat the supposed volatility of Donald Trump.

Regardless, calling up an enemy nation, or at least one that would be definitionally an enemy nation if we attacked them, to make a pledge to commit treason is never justified, not even by the delusions Milley held about the former president. In the end, there is no evidence that Trump planned to attack China or do anything else of that nature, and even if there were, the proper course of action would be for Milley to refuse, resign his position, and notify Congress. We do not have military coups in this country, yet that’s what Milley propagated when he colluded with Nancy Pelosi to take the reins of government in the last month of Trump’s presidency.

But as RedState reported last night, the gaslighting is already beginning, and Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin continues her quest to win the award for repeating the most off-the-record Pentagon denials.

I am told this is not true. There were 15 people on the video teleconference calls, including a representative of the State Dept and the read out and notes from Milley’s two calls with his Chinese counterpart were shared with the IC and the Interagency. https://t.co/sGRvaKgLfS

— Jennifer Griffin (@JenGriffinFNC) September 15, 2021

This bothers me because Griffin has always painted herself as a straight shooter. When Trump tried to pull out of Syria, she did not shy away one bit from sharing her personal opinions. Yet, when the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan started to take shape, I noticed that she seemed to pointedly avoid ever criticizing the Pentagon, including Milley. That struck me as odd given the vigor with which she seemed to hit those on the political side of the equation. Where was the righteous anger she displayed in defense of the Kurds?

That’s when it became clear to me that Griffin, though she’ll never admit it, is simply protecting her access to sources. Without her connections in the Pentagon, likely including Milley himself, she has no career. Thus, we get a Fox News reporter playing comms director for a disgraced general who not only helped lead the botched, deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan but also called up the Chinese communists to pledge treasonous behavior.

Regardless, let’s take Griffin’s report on the merits. One, who did she hear it from? The answer is almost assuredly someone inside the Pentagon, and likely someone inside Milley’s office. Two, the denial she repeats is not even a denial. It does not matter if 100 people heard the call or were told about the call. If the President of the United States was not notified in some fashion, then Milley broke the chain of command and essentially appointed himself a military dictator in conducting his own foreign policy, promising to feed the Chinese information of a coming attack. There is no situation where that becomes acceptable just because the intelligence community was notified.

That’s why I say that Griffin is acting like a comms director here. She’s regurgitating a non-denial that attempts to qualify the matter without actually qualifying it in a way that makes what transpired acceptable or legal. I would expect better from Fox News, but here we are.

This is simple. Did Milley notify Trump, directly or indirectly, of what he was doing? If he didn’t, it was out of bounds, period. Milley served in an advisory role. He was not the leader of the military or keeper of the nuclear codes. He had no right to collude with political Democrats to then collude with foreign adversaries. It does not matter what one thinks of Donald Trump personally. The constitutional order was violated, and if that is allowed to stand, we no longer have a constitutional order.