A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times is a book by Mark Esper, 27th United States Secretary of Defense which was published on May 10, 2022 by HarperCollins. [1]
In the book, Esper wrote that President Donald Trump wanted to launch a missile into Mexico. [2] [3] [4]
He made many other claims about Trump. [5] Among these claims, Esper asserts that, during a meeting in June 2020, Trump asked whether U.S. troops could shoot Black Lives Matter protesters; [6] that Trump once called Esper, Vice President Mike Pence and General Mark Milley "fucking losers" after Milley told him that he had no command authority over the active duty and National Guard troops Trump wanted to deploy against protesters; [7] and that an officer, whom Esper does not name, explored the possibility of invoking the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution to remove Trump from office after a May 2020 meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. [8]
Lloyd Green of The Guardian wrote "The ex-defense secretary’s memoir is scary and sobering – but don’t expect Republican leaders or voters to heed his warning" [9] and John Bolton of The Wall Street Journal wrote "I still believe this. 'A Sacred Oath' is not a gratuitous tell-all. It is a work of history.". [10]
The book has been also reviewed by Laura Miller of Slate [11] and Thomas F. Lynch III of National Defense University. [12]
The book was listed in The New York Times Best Seller list. [13]
Michael Richard Pence is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 48th vice president of the United States from 2017 to 2021 under President Donald Trump during the first administration. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 50th governor of Indiana from 2013 to 2017, and as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2001 to 2013.
The Presidential Emergency Operations Center is a bunker underneath the East Wing of the White House. It serves as a secure shelter and communications center for the president of the United States and others in case of an emergency.
James Norman Mattis is an American military veteran who served as the 26th United States secretary of defense from 2017 to 2019. A retired Marine Corps four-star general, he commanded forces in the Persian Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War.
Donald John Trump is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Having won the 2024 presidential election as the Republican Party's nominee, he is scheduled to be inaugurated as the 47th president on January 20, 2025.
Since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been embroiled in tense relations with the U.S. and its allies. Following the hostage crisis, both countries severed relations. Since then, both countries have been involved in numerous direct confrontations, diplomatic incidents, and proxy wars throughout the Middle East, which has caused the tense nature of the relationship between the two to be called an 'international crisis'. Both countries have often accused each other of breaking international law on several occasions. The U.S. has often accused Iran of sponsoring terrorism and of illegally maintaining a nuclear program, as well as using strong rhetoric against Israel, of which Iran has questioned its legitimacy and its right to exist while supporting Hamas, an antizionist terrorist group in the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, Iran has often accused the U.S. of human rights violations and of meddling in their affairs, especially within the Iranian Democracy Movement.
James Northey Miller Jr. is the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory's Assistant Director for Policy and Analysis and also serves on the National Security Council staff as U.S. Coordinator for the Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) security agreement. He previously served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from February 18, 2012 until January 8, 2014 and as Deputy Under Secretary of Defense from April 2009 to February 2012.
Mark Alexander Milley is a retired United States Army general who served as the 20th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from October 1, 2019, to September 30, 2023. He had previously served as the 39th chief of staff of the Army from August 14, 2015, to August 9, 2019 and held multiple command and staff positions in eight divisions and special forces.
Patrick Michael Shanahan is an American businessman and the president and chief executive officer of Spirit AeroSystems. He is a former United States federal government official who served as the acting United States Secretary of Defense in 2019. President Donald Trump appointed Shanahan to the role after the resignation of Jim Mattis. Prior to that, Shanahan served as Deputy Secretary of Defense from 2017 to 2019. Before his government service, he previously spent 30 years at Boeing in a variety of roles.
Ryan D. McCarthy is an American business executive and former U.S. Army Ranger who served as the 24th United States Secretary of the Army, from 2019 to 2021. He previously held the office in an acting capacity in 2017 and 2019.
Mark Thomas Esper is an American politician and manufacturing/high-tech executive who served as the 27th United States secretary of defense from 2019 to 2020. A member of the Republican Party, he had previously served as the 23rd U.S. secretary of the Army from November 2017 to July 2019.
This section of the timeline of United States history includes major events from 2010 to the present.
The U.S. embassy in the Green Zone of Baghdad, Iraq, was attacked on 31 December 2019 by Kata'ib Hezbollah militiamen and their Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) supporters and sympathizers. The attack was prompted by the U.S. airstrikes on 29 December 2019 that targeted weapons depots and command and control installations of Kata'ib Hezbollah across Iraq and Syria.
On 3 January 2020, Qasem Soleimani, an Iranian major general, was killed by an American drone strike near Baghdad International Airport, Iraq, while travelling to meet Iraqi prime minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi.
On June 1, 2020, amid the George Floyd protests in Washington, D.C., law enforcement officers used tear gas and other riot control tactics to forcefully clear peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square, creating a path for President Donald Trump and senior administration officials to walk from the White House to St. John's Episcopal Church. Trump held a Bible and posed for a photo op in front of Ashburton House, which had been defaced by graffiti and damaged by a fire set during protests the night before.
Christopher Charles Miller is an American retired United States Army Special Forces colonel who served as acting United States secretary of defense from November 9, 2020, to January 20, 2021. He previously served as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center from August 10 to November 9, 2020. Before his civilian service in the Department of Defense, Miller was a Green Beret, commanding units of the 5th Special Forces Group in Afghanistan and Iraq, and later spent time as a defense contractor.
After Democratic nominee Joe Biden won the 2020 United States presidential election, Republican nominee and then-incumbent president Donald Trump pursued an unprecedented effort to overturn the election, with support from his campaign, proxies, political allies, and many of his supporters. These efforts culminated in the January 6 Capitol attack by Trump supporters in an attempted self-coup d'état. Trump and his allies used the "big lie" propaganda technique to promote claims that had been proven false and conspiracy theories asserting the election was stolen by means of rigged voting machines, electoral fraud and an international conspiracy. Trump pressed Department of Justice leaders to challenge the results and publicly state the election was corrupt. However, the attorney general, director of National Intelligence, and director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency – as well as some Trump campaign staff – dismissed these claims. State and federal judges, election officials, and state governors also determined the claims were baseless.
On January 6, 2021, the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., was attacked by a mob of supporters of then president Donald Trump in an attempted self-coup d'état, two months after his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. They sought to keep him in power by preventing a joint session of Congress from counting the Electoral College votes to formalize the victory of President-elect Joe Biden. The attack was ultimately unsuccessful in preventing the certification of the election results. According to the bipartisan House select committee that investigated the incident, the attack was the culmination of a seven-part plan by Trump to overturn the election. Within 36 hours, five people died: one was shot by Capitol Police, another died of a drug overdose, and three died of natural causes, including a police officer who died of natural causes a day after being assaulted by rioters. Many people were injured, including 174 police officers. Four officers who responded to the attack died by suicide within seven months. Damage caused by attackers exceeded $2.7 million.
The following article is a broad timeline of the course of events surrounding the attack on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, by rioters supporting United States President Donald Trump's attempts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. Pro-Trump rioters stormed the United States Capitol after assembling on the Ellipse of the Capitol complex for a rally headlined as the "Save America March".
Three days after Donald Trump announced his campaign for the 2024 United States presidential election, a special counsel investigation was opened by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on November 18, 2022, to continue two investigations initiated by the Justice Department (DOJ) regarding former U.S. President Donald Trump. Garland appointed Jack Smith, a longtime federal prosecutor, to lead the independent investigations. Smith was tasked with investigating Trump's role in the January 6 United States Capitol attack and Trump's mishandling of government records, including classified documents.
After Donald Trump lost the 2020 United States presidential election, multiple individuals plotted to use force to stop the peaceful transition of power; this was one aspect of what eventually led to the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol.