Christopher C. Miller

Christopher Charles Miller (born October 15, 1965) is an American Special Forces colonel who served as acting United States secretary of defense from November 9, 2020, to January 20, 2021. He previously served as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center from August 10 to November 9, 2020. Before his civilian service in the Department of Defense, Miller was a Green Beret, commanding units of the 5th Special Forces Group in Afghanistan and Iraq, and later spent time as a defense contractor.

Miller's tenure in the Trump administration began as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, confirmed by voice vote in the United States Senate on August 6, 2020. Miller was accused of obstructing the transition to Joe Biden's administration by Biden staff, which Miller denied.

Miller was criticized for his response to the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol. He approved the deployment of National Guard troops from neighboring states to reinforce the D.C. National Guard at 4:41 p.m., three hours after Capitol Police said that they were being overrun and two hours after city officials had asked for such assistance. Miller later testified that he had no need to speak with the president on January 6 because, "I had all the authority I needed and I knew what had to happen," and he said the delay was because he wanted to avoid a repeat of the Kent State shootings.

Upon the inauguration of Joe Biden on January 20, 2021, Miller was succeeded by then-Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist.

Early life and education Miller was born in Platteville, Wisconsin, on October 15, 1965, and raised in Iowa City from 1975. His mother, Lois Maxine Miller, taught at the University of Delaware. and according to Miller he "believed strongly in the nobility of public service". He had previously worked as an assistant professor of law and government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He later received a Master of Arts in national security studies from the Naval War College in 2001. He also graduated from the College of Naval Command and Staff and the Army War College. Over the course of his career, Miller was deployed several times to Afghanistan and Iraq. In Iraq, he commanded Special Forces units in 2006 and 2007. His promotion to colonel was approved in December 2009.

Miller served as program executive officer (PEO) for rotary wing programs at U.S. Special Operations Command in 2010. One of his last assignments as an Army officer was as Director for Special Operations and Irregular Warfare in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict & Interdependent Capabilities at the Pentagon in 2011.

Civilian career through October 2020 After retiring from the military in 2014, Miller worked as a defense contractor. Miller served in the civil service as an inspector for the assistant to the secretary of defense for intelligence oversight from late 2017 until he was detailed to the National Security Council in March 2018. During his tenure on the NSC, he served as counterterrorism adviser where he was involved in operations against ISIL before leaving in March 2019.

In 2020, he was appointed deputy assistant secretary of defense (DASD) for special operations and combating terrorism (SOCT). On 10 August 2020, he began his duties as director of the NCTC after being confirmed by a Senate voice vote on 6 August 2020. This occurred while President Trump was a lame duck. The top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Mac Thornberry, feared that U.S. adversaries would be emboldened by Trump's sudden withdrawals from conflict zones, and lame-duck purges of advisory boards.

Miller's chief of staff as acting secretary of defense was Kash Patel, a former aide to Congressman Devin Nunes. Patel is known for efforts to discredit investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

In November 2020, the political acting leadership of the Pentagon ordered drawdowns of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia against the advice of U.S. military commanders. Some were critical of the decision with one group calling it "11th hour of President Donald Trump's administration, risk serious harm to hard-fought counterterrorism gains and American safety. With these recent moves, Miller appears to be disregarding important lessons about terrorists' resilience and the value of partnerships when conducting counterterrorism, while embracing a politically expedient but strategically nonsensical notion of 'ending forever wars' to appease the president during his final weeks in office." They also pointed to the inconsistency in Miller's message where he claimed that the United States is "on the verge of defeating al-Qa'ida" and noted the need to avoid "our past strategic error of failing to see the fight through to the finish," while also making the audacious statement that "Now, it's time to come home." Miller said that this was a "mutually agreed-upon holiday pause" with the Biden transition, but the Biden transition team said no such agreement had been made. Miller's decision to temporarily halt cooperation with the incoming administration came in the wake of President Donald Trump's refusal to concede in the election, refusals by various Trump administration political appointees to cooperate, and claims of fraud by the Trump administration.

That same day, Trump had a conversation with Acting Defense Secretary Miller, about which Miller later testified to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform during a May 2021 hearing into the January 6 riot. Miller testified that he told the president that Washington, D.C., mayor Muriel Bowser had placed a request for unarmed personnel to reinforce local law enforcement. He testified that Trump responded: "Fill it and do whatever was necessary to protect the demonstrators that were executing their constitutionally protected rights".

On January 5, Miller issued orders which prohibited deploying D.C. Guard members with weapons, helmets, body armor, or riot control agents without his personal approval.

Miller's actions on January 6 faced scrutiny. After rioters breached the Capitol Police perimeter, Miller waited more than three hours before authorizing the deployment of the National Guard.

According to Miller's testimony, he did not speak with Trump at any time during the Capitol attack: "I didn't need to. I had all the authority I needed and I knew what had to happen," he said.

Comments about Russia and about U.S. fighter jets In a January 14, 2021, interview, Miller praised Russia's military capabilities, given their larger problems (e.g., declining population and single source of revenue) saying, "professionally I'm like, wow, they're doing pretty well, and they're using a lot of irregular warfare concepts, information, all this stuff, in a way that, you know, like . . . good on them."

Miller criticized certain Pentagon programs and strategies and declared that he could "not wait to leave the job." Specifically, he derided the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and criticized efforts to develop fifth- and emerging sixth-generation fighter aircraft.

Miller supported innovative plans for the Defense Department to do "things below the threshold of armed conflict" which he viewed as the future of the department, even though "a lot of people just want to continue doing the same old thing again and again. I think that's the definition of insanity, isn't it? Oh, did I say that out loud?"

Post-Trump administration Miller published his own memoir Soldier Secretary: Warnings from the Battlefield & the Pentagon About America's Most Dangerous Enemies, in February 2023. In the book, Miller suggested that the US military budget could be cut by 40 to 50 percent, restoring to the pre-9/11 level.

In 2023, Miller authored the chapter on the Department of Defense for the ninth edition of the Heritage Foundation's book Mandate for Leadership, which provides the policy agenda for Project 2025.

The Age of Disclosure Miller is a participant in The Age of Disclosure, a 2025 documentary film about UFOs and claimed government programs involving recovery of alien technology crashed on Earth.

Personal life Miller married Kathryn Maag Miller on September 16, 1989. She works as an office manager for a health and environment lobbying group. They have three children.