Former defense chiefs denounce Trump's 'reckless' Pentagon firings
Source: Washington Post
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, head of the U.S. 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, the 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.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/02/27/mattis-defense-secretaries-trump-pentagon-firings/
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