Hardly an anti-Trump book comes out that doesn’t contain some juicy anecdotes about how General Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, stopped President Trump from doing something.

The latest, in Bob Woodward’s Peril, is some of the most treasonous stuff, which claims that Milley colluded with his Chinese opposite number and tried to interfere with some imaginary military strike.

President Trump’s statements seems to have cast doubt on the story. And national security figures like Richard Grenell and Senator Tom Cotton have suggested that the whole thing is made up.

But who made it up?

The parade of Milley stories most likely come out of his own office. The pandering, as I reported in my original piece on Milley, which appears in the Freedom Center’s Disloyal: How the Military Brass is Betraying Our Country pamphlet, documented his turn after the media attacks on Milley for accompanying President Trump during the Black Lives Matter riots. Some of Biden’s people wanted to oust Milley, but his pandering no doubt helped keep him his job. But it’s becoming increasingly unsustainable. 

Is it a coincidence that this latest story is making headlines right after the Afghanistan disaster? Maybe. Woodward’s book had long since been written, but the Washington Post deciding to feature it may have been pushed along by someone in Milley’s circle.

And it’s a bridge too far even from some Democrats.

The decision to portray Milley as running a shadow military government has become threatening in and of itself. And it increasingly doesn’t matter whether the stories are true or being made up by Milley’s people, they showcase him as a threat. And they’re likely to do the opposite of what Milley wants them to do. Rather than keeping him in power, they’ll lead to his downfall instead.