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Attorneys Brian Kabateck and Shant Karnikian cover Army Secretary Dan Driscoll’s resignation after 18 months marked by escalating clashes with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has fired or sidelined roughly 10% of the Army’s highest-ranking officers and rejected a promotion list of 70 senior officers, about half of them Black, women, or both. Brian details the flashpoints: Hegseth abruptly forced out Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, a close Driscoll ally, without explanation, prompting Driscoll to personally visit George’s home; fired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.; and dismissed the first female Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Lisa Franchetti, with no stated cause. Shant walks through other casualties Hegseth has pushed out for questioning his decisions, including the Southern Command admiral who raised concerns about lethal boat strikes in the Caribbean and a two-star Defense Intelligence Agency general who questioned whether last summer’s Iran strikes actually succeeded. Brian and Shant note Driscoll met with Trump personally before resigning, and that Hegseth is now pushing Pentagon chief spokesperson Sean Parnell as a replacement, a decorated veteran whose own Senate campaign collapsed after a judge awarded his ex-wife sole custody based on abuse allegations he denies. Shant’s bottom line: this leaves the Army’s largest service without Senate-confirmed civilian or uniformed leadership in the middle of an active, unresolved Iran conflict.
