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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has made his first major move since the Quantico meeting earlier this week. The 45-year-old Trump ally fired Navy chief of staff Jon Harrison. The Politico cited two defense officials and a former defense official to report that the ouster comes after the confirmation of Navy undersecretary Hung Cao.
As per the report, the Pentagon said: “He will no longer serve as Chief of Staff to the Secretary of the Navy. We are grateful for his service to the Department.”Harrison is yet to comment.
Reports speculate that Harrison and Navy Secretary John Phelan’s sweeping changes to policy and budgeting could be behind Hegseth’s move. Politico previously reported that the two reassigned several aides ‘who were supposed to help Cao navigate the role once he’s confirmed’.
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“They had also planned to interview all future military assistants for Cao to ensure decisions came from the secretary’s office,” the publication added.
Cao was nominated by President Trump. He is a Navy veteran and a former Republican Senate candidate in Virginia.
Only earlier this week, Hegseth signed a memo, launching a new effort to overhaul the military’s watchdog agencies, sparking concerns among current and former US officials that wrongdoing could go unreported or unexamined in the largest – and most expensive – branch of the US government.
The defense chief himself is being investigated over his use of the commercial messaging app Signal to discuss Yemen attack plans.
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“We are overhauling an inspector general process, the IG, that has been weaponized, putting complainers, ideologues and poor performers in the driver’s seat,” Hegseth told top US military leaders on Tuesday.
The reforms include forcing IG offices to decide whether tips are backed by “credible evidence” within seven days and to track any “repeat complainants.”
(With Reuters inputs)