Former US President Donald Trump has reacted to Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s accusations that he intended to shoot demonstrators who flooded the streets around the White House during rallies in June 2020, Fox News informed.
In his new book, “A Sacred Oath,” Esper claims that Trump also intended to deploy 10,000 troops to Washington, D.C. to put down the protesters.
In an interview with Norah O’Donnell for 60 Minutes Esper, who was let go after Trump lost the elections in 2020 said that Trump has somewhat suggested that they should bring the troops and shoot at the protester’s legs.
Trump said that the claims Esper made in his book are a total and complete lie mentioning that he also has around 10 witnesses that can confirm his side of the story.
In his statement Trump argued that Esper was totally ineffective and that because of that he was the one who had to run the military, adding that he was also desperate not to lose his job and would have done anything Trump wanted. Trump said that because of this he called him ‘Yesper’.
Axios reported that the book of Esper was reviewed by numerous civilians, 4-star generals as well as Cabinet members who were part of the meetings.
On June 1, 2020, Trump said that he will dispatch the armed soldiers, military personnel, and enforcement officials so that they could stop the vandalism, assaults, looting, rioting, and property destruction, and to do this he needed to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act.
It happened during the height of riots in the spring of 2020 after George Floyd was killed at the hands of Minneapolis police, with hundreds of demonstrators marching in the streets in the Capital and around the country, some setting fires and vandalizing property.
Esper also said that he thought Trump was going to give an order for deployment of paratroopers in Washington D.C. that would carry weapons.
However, Trump claimed that his claims about sending 10,000 troops to the Capital are not true.
The former president said that he wanted to send those troops because he knew that loads of people were coming to protest in front of the Capitol because of the election results, but his offer was turned down by the D.C. Mayor and Nancy Pelosi.
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