Former Trump adviser Stephen Miller has denied a sensational claim that he wanted a slain Isis leader’s head dipped in pig’s blood and put on display as a warning to other terrorists.
The allegation was among several jaw-dropping claims made by Donald Trump’s former Defense Secretary Mark Esper in his new book, A Sacred Oath.
The book recounts an incident in October 2019 when the national security team gathered in the White House’s Situation Room to watch a video feed of the mission in which Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed.
Mr Miller wanted the special forces team who carried out the raid to secure al-Baghdadi’s head, dip it in pig’s blood and show it off as a deterrent to other Isis members, according to Mr Esper.
The former Defense Secretary said that he told Mr Miller that it would constitute a “war crime”.
Mr Miller denied the claim to The New York Times, and called Mr Esper a “moron”. The Independent has attempted to contact Mr Miller.
Mr Esper also revealed that the former president had asked him about launching missiles into Mexico to “destroy the drug labs” in 2020.
Mr Trump is said to have told Mr Esper that “we could just shoot some Patriot missiles and take out the labs, quietly”, and blame another country.
Mr Trump seemed more “emboldened, and more erratic after he was acquitted in his first impeachment trial”, Mr Esper wrote.
The book also revealed that Mr Trump wanted to put 10,000 active-duty troops on the streets of Washington DC during Black Lives Matter demonstrations in June 2020, and asked about shooting protesters.
Mr Esper was fired two days after the 2020 election, as Mr Trump tried to “tighten his grip on the executive branch with demands of personal loyalty”.
The former cabinet member told The Times that his former boss was “an unprincipled person who, given his self-interest, should not be in the position of public service”.
Mr Esper sued the Department of Defense when they tried to block some passages from being published, claiming they were concealing embarrassing details “under the guise of classification”.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Mr Trump told a fictitious story about a US general executing 49 Muslim “terrorists” using bullets dipped in pig’s blood.
Video of the speech, which resurfaced in 2019, showed Mr Trump tell supporters during a rally in South Carolina that the fake atrocity was ordered by US general John Pershing in the early 20th century.
“And there’s a whole thing with swine, and animals, and pigs, and you know the story OK? They don’t like that. And they were having a tremendous problem with terrorism,” he said, adding the story was in few history books because “they don’t like teaching this”.
He continued: “He took 50 terrorists, and he took 50 men, and he dipped 50 bullets in pig’s blood. You heard that right?
“He took 50 bullets and he dipped them in pig’s blood, and he had his men load up his rifles, and he lined up the 50 people, and they shot 49 of those people and the 50th person, he said, ‘You go back to your people and you tell them what happened’.”
