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Quiet firings with big consequences, why the lack of transparency when relieving military leaders matters
Interview transcript
Terry Gerton You have done some analysis looking at the pattern of senior military officers being relieved with very little explanation from the Department of Defense. We’ve all read some of the headlines, but what is it about this issue that concerns you?
Virginia Burger For me, the biggest concern was that, like you said, there’s little to no justification for many of these firings. Or if we get any, it’s very oblique references in tweets from senior leaders like Secretary Hegseth, and we’re never provided any follow-up or any true validation that the relief was actually warranted. And for me, that is a red flag because it seems like we’re probably politicizing a organization that is meant to be apolitical, right? The military was always supposed to be an apolitical body, it’s not supposed to serve a party, it is supposed to serve the people, and if we are firing the most senior leaders of that organization for overtly political reasons, which is what we are left to surmise, given lack of any other information, that should be a serious point of pause for all Americans.
Terry Gerton As I mentioned, we’ve seen some headlines, but we may not know about all of the reliefs. Can you talk about how widespread this has become?
Virginia Burger So obviously I think the ones that everyone’s probably most familiar with were right away, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General C.Q. Brown, was relieved and then the chief of naval operations, Admiral Lisa Franchetti, were both relieved. They were probably the two biggest ones that everyone saw. And again, Hegseth characterized it very generally as cleaning house. I need new leadership, new generation for context. Neither of them were due to be turned over at that point in time, they were both still, well — had several years left in their tenure in those positions. And everyone sort of was left to guess, well, maybe they relieved General Brown because he was African-American and maybe they relieved Admiral Franchetti because she was a woman. I don’t have a ton of familiarization with General Brown, but I know a lot of friends in the Navy who were incredibly proud [of] and respected Admiral Françhetti. She was considered the pick for CNO and so her relief was quite shocking to a lot of people because she was by far and way, if we’re gonna talk about merit for positions, she was the person for that position. Some other ones that have maybe not gone as noticed are in some lower, more subordinate commands, but certainly still across the board, there were several women relieved in the Air Force and the Army that were senior leaders, and also notably the head of the NSA was relieved, and that position was gapped for several months. In fact, the replacement was only announced in the last few weeks, and that was both concerning for, why was the person relieved, but also from a strategic decision. If the NSA doesn’t have a leader, that’s a hugely powerful arm of national security. That was a big bipartisan concern as well that many senators and representatives expressed concern over.
Terry Gerton Let’s follow that because you also documented some patterns about gaps in leadership and transition and readiness. Tell us more about that.
Virginia Burger So when a senior leader is relieved, and it’s not on the normal timeline, because most of these positions you hold for a period of usually two to three years, that’s the typical timeline for command, especially at those senior leader levels of lieutenant generals and vice admirals, generals and admirals. When one of those positions is relieved suddenly, you do not have a replacement lined up. And for a lot of these senior leaders the replacement has to be confirmed by Congress, right? For combatant commanders, for service chiefs, that person has to nominated, they have to be reviewed by the Senate Armed Services Committee, and then voted on by the Senate. If you fire someone off timeline, that position is going to be gapped, and these are our most senior military leaders who are in the positions that are making the most pivotal decisions for our national strategy, and who are making the decisions that America’s sons and daughters in service are going to have to execute. And so when they’re fired very suddenly, that position is empty and there is a power vacuum, there is a void and naturally the executive officer, the deputy is going to step up and do their best and maybe they’ll rush to put in someone who’s acting. But you know, an acting person in that position does not have the same legal authorities. They don’t have the same authorities for command and it’s just going to cause headaches and issues that will roll all the way down the chain. And it can be very, very difficult for a unit to run. And then when we’re talking about people in positions of such amount of power, that’s going to have a lot of ramifications on national security, morale, and making sure our service members are well taken care of.
Terry Gerton So, Virginia, these positions that have been relieved have been at the top of chains of command. Have you heard any response from within the military or within DoD about the impact?
Virginia Burger I can only speak to like anecdotes I’ve been given from people I know. I haven’t seen any significant reports or anything from the DoD officially because they aren’t releasing any information like that, right? Like, Secretary Hegseth has not come out and said, hey, here’s a survey or here’s an investigation we did to see if the very dramatic relief of Admiral Franchetti had negative impacts to naval readiness. He’s not doing that kind of work or if he is, he’s not going to publish it. What I can say, and what I’ve heard, like I said, I spoke to several peers and friends of mine who are in the Navy, and it was quite a morale blow when she was relieved. I know many women in service, as a veteran myself, I still have many friends on active duty, and they have watched as many of those relieved look like them. They are women, and they’re sort of questioning, is there a future for me in this organization? I have friends who have sort of passed the 10-year mark, they’re trying to make it to 20, and they are looking to see, is that even really an option? Will I be able to continue to dedicate my life to this service that I’ve chosen? And that’s going to have ripple effects across the force and that’s not gonna have great implications when it comes to readiness, morale, etc.
Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Virginia Burger. She’s the senior defense policy analyst for the Center for Defense Information at the Project on Government Oversight. Virginia, in your paper, you talk about some opportunities that Congress might have to have some more say in this. Walk us through your suggestions.
Virginia Burger Like I said earlier, Congress has to review these nominees for the senior positions, right? And we’re talking specifically about the highest ranking officers. These are three and four-star generals and admirals. So those are the positions that have to go before Congress, they have to be cleared by SASC, Senate Armed Services Committee, and then voted on before they can take their seat in that position. And so Congress, and specifically the Senate, exists in that advisory capacity to the president’s nomination. And that’s written in law. That’s in Title 10, which is the section of U.S. Code that governs the United States military. There is a specific section, Section 601, that talks about the appointment of these officers, and it also talks about the removal and the replacement of them in some level of detail, but without any mention of Congress’ role, because there isn’t one in law for their removal. My suggestion is that we actually amend Section 601, so that there is some official oversight. Now, granted, Congress has avenues for oversight over these decisions now, right? The Senate, congress, they have the ability to conduct hearings, open investigations. If they wanted to, they could open an investigation into the relief of General Brown or Admiral Franchetti and subpoena them or subpoena Secretary Hegseth and have them come in and answer questions about that incident. The Senate could do that tomorrow. Politics aside, with all of that, there are things they could do to change the law. So my recommendations would be that they include explicit requirements for formal congressional notification, right? So when a senior leader, one of these three or four stars, is relieved, within 24 hours, it should be in the law, within twenty four hours, Congress must be formally notified of that decision. Right? Because again, these are the people whose relief is going to have the biggest impact to our national security. Our legislative body should be told that. That is something that I think would be a no-brainer to include, in my opinion. Another one is make sure that the DoD has to show their work, right? There should be a full investigative report. You and I have both been executive officers, I think you, for a very large battalion. You’re aware that the military loves to investigate everything. Someone sneezes in the wrong direction and an investigation is triggered. My guess is there’s probably investigations when these reliefs happen, I would hope there is, at the very least. If there isn’t, that’s maybe another question that we need to also pull the thread on. But at the least, I think Congress should be in receipt of that investigative material. Whatever investigation was done at that command level for the relief of that general or admiral should be provided to them, along with a statement from either the service secretary or the secretary of defense as to the justification for the relief and an optional response from the relieved officer stating their perspective. And that, I believe, should be included in 601 as a requirement to be given to Congress following the relief of one of these officers within 30 days. That way, Congress has this information. Does it need to be public? Maybe not. You could argue if someone is relieved for maybe personal misconduct that they don’t want in the public eye, sure, then the Senate or Congress can handle that with discretion, but at the very least, those legislators need that information so that they can make sure that the Secretary of Defense, the service secretaries, are not engaging in overt politicization in the removal of these officers.
Terry Gerton Virginia, I want to push on that a little bit because those proposals would give Congress oversight, but it still doesn’t address the issue of remediation or reinstatement that Congress might have that authority, if they were to receive all of that information and find that, in fact, in their opinion, that individual should continue on active duty. How do we get to a corrective measure that might help address this problem, or are you thinking that the additional oversight is its own deterrent?
Virginia Burger I think the oversight would be a deterrent in its own right because, you know, my guess is the secretary of defense does not want to be hauled in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee to answer for these should the Senate read the report and realize that the decision was overtly political. But there are, you now, like you said, ways that we could do it. They could impeach the service secretary or the secretary of defense if they feel like they are making these political decisions. That’s available to them now. I believe articles of impeachment for Secretary Hegseth were put forward in the House I think last week in light of Venezuela, I think one of the representatives did. I don’t think they went anywhere, but it’s something that they could do any day of the week if they feel like they are inappropriately handling their position, right? So that’s something they could to enforce this. Unfortunately, a lot of the rules governing the appointment of officers are established through case precedence. It’s not necessarily reflective explicitly in Title 10 or in the Constitution. So, a lot of the limitations that say the president is the one who should be appointing officers comes from case law, specifically before the Supreme Court. So that gets a little bit murky when it comes into the reinstatement of officers. But certainly, in my opinion, the easiest way would be if we believe a secretary of defense is mishandling their position by relieving officers for political reasons. If you impeach them, potentially the next secretary could then reinstate them. And then it’s very clean because it’s the secretary and the president who are then reinstating them.
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