WASHINGTON – A prominent Democratic senator on the committee that oversees the Pentagon is requesting additional information from the Defense Department following reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is withholding the promotions of several Black and female senior officers.
NBC News reported last week that Hegseth had blocked or delayed promotions for more than a dozen Black and female senior officers across all four branches of the military. Some of those efforts are seen as having been targeted because of their race or gender, or their perceived affiliation with the Biden administration's policies or officials, according to NBC news reporting that cited nine U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
Hegseth's actions have raised concern inside the White House, the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill, according to U.S and congressional officials. Some lawmakers, including both Republicans and Democrats, see the decisions as Hegseth taking too far his efforts to scrub the Pentagon of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, according to the officials.
“Public reports allege that these holds may have been motivated by political ideology, inappropriate bias, or immutable and constitutionally protected characteristics rather than merit,” wrote Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in a letter to the panel’s chairman, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss. “Military advancement must remain strictly meritocratic and based on performance,” the letter, dated April 3, reads.
Wicker did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Gillibrand asked Wicker to convene a closed hearing on the matter, meaning one that is closed to the public to discuss potentially sensitive personnel matters.
“It is critical that we both assert the constitutional oversight role of the Senate and ensure that our military is selecting the best candidates for promotion to general officer based solely on merit, free of unlawful bias or prejudice,” she wrote.
A hearing would require Hegseth or another Pentagon representative to defend the actions around promotions.
The Pentagon’s response to NBC News’ story on Hegseth’s intervention on military promotions was to call it “fake news” and say the story was based on sources “who have no idea what they’re talking about,” according to the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson Sean Parnell. Under Hegseth, he wrote, “military promotions are given to those who have earned them. Meritocracy, which reigns in this Department, is apolitical and unbiased.”
Hegseth has also fired numerous senior officers with little or no acknowledgement of what rationale was used to do so, NBC News reported. Many of those officers were Black or female or had perceived affiliations with senior military leaders associated with the Biden administration.
That includes removing the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, a Black man, and Chief of Naval Operations Lisa Franchetti, a white woman early last year. Last week, Hegseth fired the Army’s top officer, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, who was a former senior aide to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
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He also removed Maj. Gen. William Green, the Army’s Chief of Chaplains, a Black man, and Gen. David Hodne, the commanding general of Army Transformation and Training Command, a white man.
