WASHINGTON Former President Donald Trump s desire to deploy 10,000 active-duty troops to put down protests in June 2020 that he thought made him look weak later led top Pentagon officials to fear he might issue an illegal order to troops to help him remain in power despite losing the 2020 election, the House Jan. 6 committee concluded.

Trumps willingness to misuse the military became acutely apparent after he demanded that then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley accompany him for a June 1, 2020, photo-op outside a church a block from the White House after police cleared Lafayette Square using tear gas and beatings. Protesters there and across the country had been marching to express outrage over the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by Minneapolis police, whose actions were captured on video.

Esper, in an April 2022 deposition before the House select committee, said he realized immediately that his presence at Trumps display had been a mistake. I thought it was inappropriate that I was there, and I know Gen. Milley felt the same. It was particularly so for Gen. Milley, being a uniformed officer.

He issued a statement to that effect, and on June 3 in a news conference told reporters that he did not support invoking the Insurrection Act to allow the use of active-duty troops against the Black Lives Matter protesters, as Trump wanted. That immediately drew a summons to the White House.

He was quite upset and yelling, Esper told the committee. He thought that I took away his authority, that I was acting as president and that I took away his authority to invoke the Insurrection Act.