Five former Pentagon chiefs signed an open letter calling on Congress to hold immediate hearings on President Donald Trump’s firings of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other defense officials.
In the letter, former Defense Secretaries Lloyd Austin, James Mattis, Chuck Hagel, Leon Panetta, and William Perry argued there was no justification for Trump to fire Air Force Gen. CQ Brown as the leader of the joint chiefs earlier this month. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth later fired Adm. Lisa Franchetti, chief of naval operations; Gen. Jim Slife, vice chief of the Air Force; and the judge advocates general, or JAG, for the military services.
“We, like many Americans—including many troops—are therefore left to conclude that these leaders are being fired for purely partisan reasons,” said the letter, before adding, “We’re not asking members of Congress to do us a favor; we’re asking them to do their jobs.”
“As former Secretaries of Defense, we call on both the House and the Senate to hold immediate hearings to assess the national security implications of Mr. Trump’s dismissals,” the letter said. “The House and Senate should demand that the administration 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.”
The five former defense chiefs represented Republican and Democrat administrations over the past three decades. Mattis was nominated by Trump in his first term before he resigned from his post in February 2019 after a disagreement with the president on withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria.
Adding that Brown hadn’t yet finished his term, the former Pentagon chiefs said that U.S. senators should refuse to confirm any nominations in the Department of Defense (DOD), which includes Trump’s choice to name retired Lt. Gen. Dan Caine as his chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The chairman has a four-year term, and Brown had served a little less than 17 months.
In recent decades, a number of three-star and four-star officers have been fired, but Pentagon leaders have routinely made clear why they were ousted. Those reasons included disagreements over the conduct of the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, problems with the oversight of America’s nuclear arsenal, and public statements critical of the president and other leaders.
When Brown was let go by the administration, Trump thanked him for his decades of military service and confirmed that he wanted Caine to lead the Joint Chiefs.
“He is a fine gentleman and an outstanding leader, and I wish a great future for him and his family,” Trump wrote on social media last week. Also in the post, he wrote that Caine was “passed over” for promotion under the Biden administration, “but not anymore.”
Trump added that alongside Hegseth, “Caine and our military will restore peace through strength, put America First, and rebuild our military.”
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