Pete Hegseth fired the Judge Advocates General of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force on the night of February 21, 2025, and said why. They were "roadblocks to orders that are given by a commander in chief."
Lt. Gen. Charles Plummer lost the Air Force's top legal job and Lt. Gen. Joseph Berger III the Army's; Vice Adm. Christopher French had left the Navy's weeks earlier. All three seats went empty at once. The same night Trump and Hegseth removed Gen. C.Q. Brown Jr. from the Joint Chiefs and Adm. Lisa Franchetti from the Navy's top job. Sens. Mazie Hirono and Elissa Slotkin said the firings broke federal law.
Hegseth kept going — twenty generals and admirals out in about fifteen months. Last October the officer who replaced the fired Air Force JAG stepped away, and CNN reported the Pentagon was sidelining its lawyers while it tested the legal limits of military action. Hegseth calls himself Secretary of War and had the nameplate made. Congress never renamed the department.
Hegseth had cleared out everyone senior enough to say no. Then he turned to what people were saying.
He ordered Pentagon staff to hunt for posts mocking Charlie Kirk's killing last September, and asked the public to turn in service members. Roughly 300 people fell under investigation, 128 in uniform. Five days later a Chief of Naval Operations memo opened a standing channel for reports of "unprofessional personal social media use." In October Hegseth ordered every member of the department to watch his Quantico speech, then required prior approval for any contact between officers and Congress. The Army suspended Col. Amy Nieman of the 101st Airborne over a private Facebook post.
Sen. Mark Kelly, a retired Navy captain, told troops in a November video they may refuse illegal orders. Trump called it "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH." Hegseth censured Kelly, ordered a Navy review, and the Pentagon floated recalling him to active duty for court-martial. Kelly sued in January and a judge enjoined the Pentagon in February on First Amendment grounds. Hegseth is appealing; no court has ruled.
On Friday the Pentagon handed separation notices to three people at Stars and Stripes, the paper Congress requires to stay independent on Pentagon money. It cited insubordination against editor-in-chief Erik Slavin, on staff since 2005, after he told CBS in July that censoring what service members read would be "a red line." Publisher Max Lederer had announced his retirement a week earlier; they separated him anyway. Lara Korte covers the Iran war. In April the Pentagon terminated the ombudsman Congress created to protect the paper's independence.
