{"id":167011,"date":"2025-02-28T10:29:21","date_gmt":"2025-02-28T15:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=167011"},"modified":"2025-02-28T10:29:21","modified_gmt":"2025-02-28T15:29:21","slug":"former-secretaries-of-defense-call-for-congressional-hearings-on-recent-pentagon-firings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=167011","title":{"rendered":"Former secretaries of defense call for congressional hearings on recent Pentagon firings"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Five former secretaries of defense penned a letter<\/a> to Congress. They’re asking for hearings related to President Trump’s removing senior military officers from their positions. These former secretaries claimed that Trump’s dismissals raise troubling questions, they hinted that Trump was politicizing the military, and they suggested that Trump’s actions undermine the all-volunteer force and weakens national security. These former secretaries also claimed that Americans would be less likely to want to serve if they felt that they would be held to a political standard.<\/p>\n

From AP News:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The letter — signed by William Perry, Leon Panetta, Chuck Hagel, Jim Mattis and Lloyd Austin — said there were no real justifications for the firings because several of the officers had been nominated by Trump for previous positions. And it said they had exemplary careers, including operational and combat experience.<\/p>\n

“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, adding that “we’re not asking members of Congress to do us a favor; we’re asking them to do their jobs.”<\/p>\n

In the meantime, they said, senators should refuse to confirm any new Pentagon nominations, including retired Lt. Gen. Dan Caine, who Trump has said should be the next joint chiefs chairman.<\/p>\n

Trump’s choice of Caine is unusual. Caine, who is widely respected in the military, would have to come back onto active duty but he does not meet the legal requirements for the top post. According to law, a chairman must have served as a combatant commander or service chief. The president can waive those requirements.<\/p>\n

Hagel is a Republican and Mattis, an independent, was Trump’s first defense chief. The other three are Democrats. Four of the five served in the military, including two — Mattis and Austin — who were four-star generals.<\/p>\n

“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 letter said.<\/p>\n

The chairman has a four-year term, and Brown had served a bit less than 17 months.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Additional Reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Baldor, L. C. (2025). Former defense chiefs call for congressional hearings on Trump’s firing of senior military leaders. AP News<\/em>. Link<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five former secretaries of defense penned a letter to Congress. They’re asking for hearings related to … Former secretaries of defense call for congressional hearings on recent Pentagon firings<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[469,84,611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donald-trump","category-military-issues","category-pentagon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=167011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167011\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=167011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=167011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=167011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}