It’s one thing to engage in treasonous behavior. It’s another thing to compound that behavior with cowardice. Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley may well be guilty of the former, but he’s certainly guilty of the latter.

As we noted yesterday, there are serious questions being raised about two phone calls Milley made to his ChiCom peer, Gen. Li Zuocheng of the PLA, one on October 30 just before the 2020 presidential election, and one on January 8 of this year, after the Capitol riot.

According to sources quoted by political writer Bob Woodward, Milley told Li in January: “I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be okay. We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you.” But Woodward’s source asserts Milley also said: “General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise.”

According to the Pentagon, there were more than 10 people listening to Milley’s calls and when he testifies before Congress on September 28, that may reveal the truth in this matter. According to Milley, the calls were “perfectly within the duties and responsibilities” of his job as CJCS. But he declined to say more, noting he should “reserve my comments on the record until I do that in front of the lawmakers who have the lawful responsibility to oversee the U.S. military.”

If a subsequent investigation determines Milley offered that assurance to give Li advance notice, he should be courtmartialed.

What a disgrace to the uniform. And, from a personal perspective, what a relief he’s not a Marine.

Milley’s spokesperson declared: “The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs regularly communicates with the Chiefs of Defense across the world, including with China and Russia. These conversations remain vital to improving mutual understanding of U.S. national security interests, reducing tensions, providing clarity and avoiding unintended consequences or conflict.”

All well and good, Mr. Spokesperson, but how often do they promise to let our enemies know “ahead of time” if we’re going to attack?

No doubt Milley, a Princeton graduate, will claim that President Donald Trump was “acting erratically” after the election. But as our Mark Alexander has observed, Trump has acted erratically by Beltway standards since the day he arrived. Which is another way of saying, Trump came to drain the swamp, and the swamp-dwellers didn’t like it.

And where starting wars is concerned, as National Review’s David Harsanyi puts it: “Despite his bellicose rhetoric and bluster, Trump had probably been more reluctant to use military force than any president in memory. … As others have pointed out, Trump was the first president since Jimmy Carter not to have gotten the nation into a new military conflict.”

That fact, of course, makes Milley’s insubordination even more rotten.

“I have great confidence in General Milley,” Joe Biden said. And we suspect he’ll continue to have great confidence in Milley right up until the moment he resigns — at which point Biden and his paid liar, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, will blame Republicans for having played politics with our national security.

As for Psaki, she was already busy yesterday trying to redirect folks from Milley’s insubordination to the non-insurrection of January 6: “I don’t think the president is looking for the guidance of members of Congress who stood by as the leader of their party fomented an insurrection,” she said.

Stay classy, Jen.

But while Biden may be thrilled to have a fellow traveler in Milley, a four-star lickspittle who may have demonstrated the same affinity for the ChiComs that Biden has, his Oval Office predecessor doesn’t seem quite so sanguine:

If the story of “Dumbass” General Mark Milley, the same failed leader who engineered the worst withdrawal from a country, Afghanistan, in U.S. history, leaving behind many dead and wounded soldiers, many American citizens, and $85 Billion worth of the newest and most sophisticated Military equipment in the world, and our Country’s reputation, is true, then I assume he would be tried for TREASON in that he would have been dealing with his Chinese counterpart behind the President’s back and telling China that he would be giving them notification “of an attack.” Can’t do that!

For the record, I never even thought of attacking China — and China knows that. The people that fabricated the story are sick and demented, and the people who print it are just as bad. In fact, I’m the only President in decades who didn’t get the U.S. into a war — a well known fact that is seldom reported.

Trump isn’t alone here. His former acting secretary of defense, Christopher Miller, said he “did not and would not ever authorize” Milley’s covert calls with the ChiComs. Miller conceded he may have been told about the calls, but noted if Woodward’s allegations are accurate, that constituted a “disgraceful and unprecedented act of insubordination,” and he called on Milley to resign immediately. Fact is, our national security analyst, Gen. B.B. Bell, U.S. Army (Ret.), has already called for Milley’s resignation based on his disastrous role in the surrender and retreat from Afghanistan.

In any case, and if for nothing more than the sake of military morale, Mark Milley needs to go. Political analyst John Hinderaker sums things up this way: “I never would have imagined that the U.S. military could sink to the level represented by Milley. He should be fired, cashiered, court-martialed, drummed out of the Army, criminally prosecuted if possible. And we need a thorough investigation into how the leadership of our armed forces could possibly have sunk so low.”

Like we said: Why does this guy still have a job?

(Updated)