Former defense chiefs denounce Trump’s ‘reckless’ Pentagon firings

Five former defense secretaries on Thursday denounced President Donald Trump’s firing last week of the Joint Chiefs chairman and several other senior military officials, urging Congress to hold hearings and declaring they have concluded the officers were “fired for purely partisan reasons.”

The extraordinary public appeal was signed by Lloyd Austin, Jim Mattis, Chuck Hagel, Leon Panetta and William Perry – who served in Republican and Democratic administrations dating back to the 1990s – after Trump’s Friday night firings caused an uproar on Capitol Hill and among many military veterans.

“We are deeply alarmed by President Trump’s recent dismissals of several senior U.S. military leaders,” the letter opens. “We write to urge the U.S. Congress to hold Mr. Trump to account for these reckless actions and to exercise fully its Constitutional oversight responsibilities.”

Among those ousted on Friday were Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the Pentagon’s top officer; Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the head of the Navy; Gen. James Slife, the Air Force’s vice chief of staff; and the top military lawyers for the Army, Navy and Air Force. Trump’s defense secretary, former Fox News personality Pete Hegseth, also removed his senior military assistant, Air Force Lt. Gen. Jennifer Short. The head of the Coast Guard, Adm. Linda Fagan, was fired the day after Trump’s inauguration.

The Trump administration has sought to downplay the dismissals, noting that previous presidents also have fired prominent generals. Those dismissals, however, typically had a proximate cause.

“The President offered no justification for his actions, even though he had nominated these officers for previous positions and the Senate had approved them,” the letter says. “These officers’ exemplary operational and combat experience, as well as the coming dismissals of the Judge Advocates General of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, make clear that none of this was about warfighting.”

Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council, said in a statement Thursday that Trump is the commander in chief and his actions are “well within” his authority – a point that most critics have not disputed.

“Our military readiness is down, we have faced historic lows in recruitment and retention, we aren’t building enough ships, and service members are living in abysmal barrack conditions,” Hughes said. “President Trump is taking bold action to ensure the Joint Staff is leading a well-run and lethal warfighting force that is second to none.”

An administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House, added that the Trump administration has turned to the example of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who reshaped the Joint Chiefs after World War II, pushing out some officers who could have stayed in their positions longer.

A Pentagon spokesman referred questions about the letter, first reported by the Associated Press, to Hegseth’s earlier remarks on the issue. On Sunday, he told Fox News that he has “a lot of respect for CQ Brown” and sees him as an “honorable man” who was “not the right man for the moment.” Before becoming defense secretary, Hegseth had accused Brown, the first Black officer to lead the Air Force and only the second to become Joint Chiefs chairman, of being overly focused on diversity issues and said that if given the opportunity, he would fire him.

The removal of Brown and Franchetti, the first woman to lead the Navy, had been anticipated for months, after Trump, Hegseth and other supporters of the president frequently accused them and other officials of putting “woke” diversity policies over the military’s primal responsibility to fight and win wars.

Hegseth also has defended the firings of the military lawyers, saying Sunday on Fox News that he wants people in those positions who will give “sound constitutional advice and don’t exist to attempt to be roadblocks to anything.”

To replace Brown as chairman, Trump has nominated a little-known retired military officer, Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine, who has served as the top military officer in the CIA but does not meet the customary qualifications for such a position. U.S. law says a president may appoint an officer to the chairmanship “only if” they have previously served as the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the top officer in one of the services or the commander of a major combatant command. As commander in chief of the armed forces, Trump can waive those guidelines, however.

In their letter, the former defense secretaries implored lawmakers to “refuse to confirm any new Defense Department nominations,” including Caine’s, until the Trump administration can “justify each firing and fully explain why it violated Congress’ legislative intent that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff complete a four-year term in office.”

“President Trump’s actions undermine our all-volunteer force and weaken our national security,” the letter states. “Talented Americans may be far less likely to choose a life of military service if they believe they will be held to a political standard. Those currently serving may grow cautious of speaking truth to power or they could erode good order and discipline by taking political actions in uniform. And the public’s traditionally high trust in the armed forces could begin to wither.”

The defense secretaries released the letter despite the Trump administration in recent weeks taking away the personal security details and suspending the security clearances of numerous senior U.S. officials who have clashed in the past with Trump, including retired Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for much of Trump’s first term.

The inclusion of Mattis, in particular, caught the attention of some current and former Pentagon officials on Thursday night. Noting that he is both a retired general and former defense secretary, Mattis has on occasion declined to criticize the current president, citing concerns about politicizing the military. But there have been a couple of notable exceptions, particularly in June 2020 when he blasted Trump after the president threatened to use U.S. troops against protesters in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd. Mattis served as Trump’s first defense secretary, resigning in December 2018 after several clashes over policy.

Mattis, reached Thursday evening, said in a text message that he “said it all in the letter.”

Peter Feaver, a political scientist at Duke University, said the defense secretaries bring extensive experience to the discussion and have concerns that are worth weighing carefully.

“They raise a lot of questions that the administration has avoided thus far – questions that if these formers know they could not avoid if they were still in office,” said Feaver, who has consulted with some top Pentagon generals in the past. “Congress can ask these questions in settings where the administration has to answer to them.”