Jan. 8 (UPI) — Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she spoke with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley about preventing an “unhinged president” from using nuclear codes.
Pelosi, the House Speaker, wrote in a letter to Democratic colleagues on Friday that she spoke with Milley “to discuss available precautions for preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike.
“The situation of this unhinged President could not be more dangerous, and we must do everything that we can to protect the American people from his unbalanced assault on our country and our democracy,” Pelosi wrote.
She did not explain the content of the conversation. There was no immediate comment from the Pentagon.
The exchange follows calls in the House for the immediate impeachment of President Donald Trump, even though his remaining term of office is only 12 days.
Pressure to remove Trump from office followed Wednesday’s attack on the Capitol, in which the president’s supporters broke into the building during a joint session of Congress called to certify the Electoral College victory of President-elect Joe Biden.
Prior to their march from the White House to the Capitol, they were encouraged by Trump’s incendiary rhetoric in which he called on Vice President Mike Pence to illegally block the certification process.
