Avoiding unintended confrontations is part of the job for a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And though the chairman isn’t formally in the chain of command, Dunford and others say there was nothing improper in Milley’s request that commanders keep him informed, as the president’s chief military adviser, if Trump gave an order to use nuclear weapons or other military force.

The focus on Milley misses a larger point: He was just one of a half-dozen senior military and civilian officials who took similar unusual steps during the final months of Trump’s administration to prevent what they feared might be a domestic or international catastrophe. This group — which quietly placed guardrails around the president’s actions — included Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Attorney General William P. Barr, CIA Director Gina Haspel and other senior officials, according to Woodward and Costa’s book and my own reporting.

In curbing the unilateral power of a reckless commander in chief, did these officials violate the Constitution? None of them were elected, after all, unlike Trump. When I asked a member of this guardrail group to go on the record five months ago, he refused. “This is an ugly story,” he said. It shouldn’t happen in our democracy.