Top general did not give his consent to be used in Trump political ad

Source: Politico | October 12, 2020 | Lara Seligman

The photo featuring Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley was used without the officer’s “knowledge or consent,” according to a defense official.

President Donald Trump’s campaign is running an online political ad that uses an image of his vice president, his Pentagon chief and his most senior military adviser watching the raid on ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi from the Situation Room on Oct. 29, 2019.

“President Trump wants you to request your ballot,” the ad says. Clicking on the ad, which includes the tagline “Paid for by Donald J. Trump for President, Inc,” leads to the Trump campaign’s voter sign-up page.

But the campaign didn’t seek approval from Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley to use his image in the ad, a defense official said. “This photo, like many others, was not used with [Milley’s] knowledge or consent,” said the official, who requested anonymity to speak about a sensitive topic.

The military has strict rules against uniformed service members participating in political campaigns, and the ad is just the latest example of the president or those around him pulling the nation’s highest-ranking officer and other Defense Department officials into the political realm.

“As a matter of long-standing policy, military service members and federal employees acting in their official capacity may not engage in activities that associate the DOD with any partisan political campaign or elections, candidate, cause or issue,” the DOD’s website states in a post from March 2019.

Active-duty service members are prohibited from participating in fundraisers, speaking before partisan gatherings and wearing military uniforms at campaign events, according to DoD.

Milley himself has in recent weeks stressed the military’s apolitical nature, as politicians prepare for the possibility of a contested election and as Trump repeatedly suggests he might not accept the results if he is not declared the winner.

The military plays no role in domestic politics, Milley told NPR on Sunday in a rare interview.

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