Since Election Day on November 3, 2020, Trump has falsely claimed that his second term is being stolen, even as there have been no credible allegations of widespread voting issues as affirmed by dozens of judges, governors, and election officials, the Electoral College, the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the US Supreme Court.

The letter published by the Washington Post on Sunday, January 3, was signed by Dick Cheney, James Mattis, Mark Esper, Leon Panetta, Donald Rumsfeld, William Cohen, Chuck Hagel, Robert Gates, William Perry and Ashton Carter.

The letter is a show of repulsion towards Trump’s subversion efforts just days before Congress is set to count Electoral College votes.

The group wrote “Our elections have occurred. Recounts and audits have been conducted. Appropriate challenges have been addressed by the courts. Governors have certified the results. And the electoral college has voted. The time for questioning the results has passed; the time for the formal counting of the electoral college votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statute, has arrived.”

The letter follows Trump’s removal of former defence secretary Mark Esper in November to change the Defense Department’s civilian leadership structure and instil loyalists to Trump

In an interview on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Amash said it was “pretty clear” from the outset that Trump had no plans of bringing the U.S. troops deployed in northern Syria back to American soil.

“He’s moving troops back into Iraq. He’s moving other troops into Saudi Arabia,” said Amash, who earlier this year left the Republican Party over his disagreements with Trump.  “He’s using our forces as paid mercenaries. What happened to the American people having their voices heard through their representatives in Congress.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said over the weekend that under current plans all U.S. troops leaving Syria will go to western Iraq and the American military will continue to conduct operations against the Islamic State group to prevent its resurgence.

Esper, who arrived in the Afghan capital on Sunday, did not rule out the idea that U.S. forces would conduct counterterrorism missions from Iraq into Syria. But he told reporters traveling with him that those details will be worked out over time.

His comments were the first to specifically lay out where American troops will go as they shift from Syria and what the counter-ISIS fight could look like. Esper, who flew overnight to Afghanistan, said he has spoken to his Iraqi counterpart about the plan to shift about 1,000 troops leaving Syria into western Iraq.