No, Christopher Miller isn’t still defense secretary

In November, then-President Donald Trump announced that Defense Secretary Mark Esper had been "terminated" and would be replaced by Christopher Miller, who was then director of the National Counterterrorism Center. 

Miller stayed in that post until Jan. 20, when President Joe Biden was inaugurated. The position is now held by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who was sworn in on Jan. 22. 

But casting unfounded and false aspersions on the validity of Biden’s election, the narrator of a recent Facebook video says, "Chris Miller is, I believe, right now, in charge of the military, second only to Trump." 

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Miller has made public statements since leaving the Pentagon earlier this year, but none in the capacity of a man in charge of the military. A man who was once in charge of the military? Sure. 

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stated on April 2, 2024 in an Instagram post

“The National Guard in the HISTORY of its life, gets called in AFTER a disaster, not BEFORE something happens.”

In May, he told lawmakers that he believed the Jan. 6 insurrection was "an organized conspiracy with assault elements in place." 

During an interview with Military Times in August, he criticized the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying, "we mishandled this so dramatically." 

Asked what he would have done, Miller said, "It’s easy for me to stay what I would have done. It’s not relevant. I thought we very much had a plan for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan in an orderly, deliberate process. Now, why that wasn’t executed by this administration is beyond my knowledge at this time. I don’t know why that is." 

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