Trump's acting defense sec says J6 committee threatened him when he revealed Trump called for National Guard in DC

Former President Donald Trump's former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller has said that the J6 Committee threatened him to "make his life hell" if he kept on claiming that Trump authorized the National Guard to secure the capital on January 6.

Miller spoke to the Daily Mail about the allegations and said when he would go on TV interviews to recount his experiences with Trump calling for the National Guard, the J6 panel would bring him in for hours at a time for additional testimony. Miller had only been on the job for two months when he was thrust into the situation. He said it was clear that Liz Cheney was running the show. 

A June 2022 interview with Sean Hannity and Trump-era National Security official Kash Patel, Miller told the outlet, apparently "hit a nerve" with the committee. 

"The two of us were on [the Fox News show] and the next day my lawyer got a call from the Jan. 6 staff director – I forgot exactly who it was – but basically saying, very legalistic: 'Well, if your client has additional information he wants to share, we'd be happy to have him re-interviewed,'" Miller told the outlet. 

"It was more that latent threat of: 'If you want to keep going on TV, we're gonna drag you in here again for additional hours of hearing testimony.' So that was the nature of that whole thing."

"It was the latent threat of the government continuing to intrude into my life," Miller added. 

One Republican communications strategist told the outlet, "Knowing how other witnesses close to me were treated, it wouldn't surprise me if people in media were also threatened by the committee to stop discussing this issue."

Miller said it was the "fear" instilled in him that kept him from speaking any more about the events publicly and did not do so until recently. 

"I wasn't communicating with anybody, because I knew any interactions I had on it would result in me having to… acknowledge that I'd been in communications with other people. And then that just sort of opens up a whole can of worms with the investigators that I just didn't want to do."

"It was much easier just to not be involved with anybody or talk to anybody about this stuff because it was going to cause conflict and difficulties with the investigating team," he added. 

The revelations from Miller come on the heels of newly released testimonies that provide evidence that Trump had called for the National Guard to be deployed in much heavier numbers by the Capitol for security on that day.