A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times – An Instant New York Times Bestseller: A Pentagon Insider's Tumultuous Years Under President Trump

by Mark T. Esper

The most shocking and troubling event of the Trump presidency was the organization and incitement of a pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and stopped the constitutional process Congress was following to affirm the election and transfer of power to a new president. I never thought I would see what happened on Capitol Hill that day. It was the worst attack on the Capitol since the War of 1812, and maybe the worst assault on our democracy since the Civil War. And as someone who worked for many years in Congress, and had an office physically in the Capitol, I was shocked, angry, sad, and hurt by what I saw on TV that day. It was doubly hard to believe our fellow Americans conducted these criminal and seditious acts. I would put out my first real tweets as a private citizen that evening, condemning the assault on Congress and those involved in it.* Just days before, on January 3, 2021, I joined the nine other living former defense secretaries in an opinion piece—the first ever—calling upon the Defense Department to stay out of electoral disputes and to facilitate the peaceful handover of power—reiterating what I had said many times as secretary of defense.† We had no idea, of course, what would happen at the Capitol on January 6, three days later. We were concerned, however, about what was occurring at the time, with Trump loyalists at the Pentagon impeding the transition and Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill challenging the election results. The piec...