An influential retired general who has President Trump’s ear said Wednesday that the reaction to the departure of top Pentagon officials in what are likely Mr. Trump’s final weeks in office has been vastly overstated.
Retired Gen. Jack Keane, the retired four-star Army general whom Mr. Trump reportedly twice tried to recruit as defense secretary, said the firing this week of Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and the resignation of the Pentagon’s top policy official and others were not a sign of turmoil or the prelude to some foreign policy adventure.
Gen. Keane told Fox Business’s “Mornings with Maria” that the Pentagon remains “very stable” despite the turnovers.
“I think people are wringing their hands about this and looking for some kind of conspiracy here by the Trump administration,” Gen. Keane said.
In about 70 days, every political appointee in the federal government will leave their office “never to return,” he said.
“In the Pentagon, that will take place as well,” Gen. Keane said. “It will take months to get the new political appointees into their new positions.”
For the uniformed military leaders who will stay of under presumptive President-elect Joseph R. Biden, he added, “There is no political transition for them.”
“The Pentagon is the most resilient and robust organization in the United States government,” he said.
Mr. Trump, who has clashed with Mr. Esper publicly on several high-profile issues, acted less than a week after the Nov. 3 election, “terminating” Mr. Esper on Monday in a tweet and naming Christopher Miller, director of the National Counter Terrorism Center, as the new defense secretary. On Tuesday, James Anderson, the acting undersecretary of defense for policy; Joseph Kernan, the undersecretary overseeing intelligence and security; and Jen Stewart, Mr. Esper’s chief of staff, all submitted letters of resignation.
The abrupt shakeup led a number of Democrats in Congress to accuse President Trump of “playing politics” with national security during the presidential transition. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, Washington Democrat, called the firing at a time when a new administration has yet to take office “reckless” and “childish.”
Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with the Democrats and sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he had “grave concerns” about Mr. Trump’s readiness to defy tradition and ignore the Defense Department’s established order of succession.
“I truly hope that Acting Secretary Miller will rise to this moment. Our nation’s security — during the next 10 weeks and beyond — depends on it,” Mr. King said.
The new acting secretary made his first public appearances on Wednesday’s Veterans Day, joining President Trump and the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the traditional wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington Cemetery’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and then attending the grand opening ceremony for the National Museum of the United States Army at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
Mr. Miller, who spent much of his military career in the Army’s elite Special Forces unit, did not address the controversies surrounding his promotion and said he owed his professional success to his decision to enlist in the Army Reserves as a 17-year-old in 1983.
“My only desire was to serve my nation,” he said during the event, which was scaled back due to COVID-19 health concerns.
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.