A four-star Army general was suspended on Friday after the Department of Defense learned he allegedly pressured an assessment panel to sign off on an officer deemed “unfit for command.”
Gen. Charles Hamilton, who allegedly lobbied on behalf of a female lieutenant colonel, was also recommended for an investigation by the Defense Department’s inspector general. Lt. Gen. Chris Mohan, deputy commander of the Army Materiel Command, which Hamilton oversaw, will be the interim commander.
“This week, Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth became aware of credible allegations Gen. Charles Hamilton, commanding general of Army Materiel Command, interfered in the Army’s Command Assessment Program process last fall,” Col. Randee Farrell, a spokeswoman for Wormuth, told Military.com in a statement.
Farrell added that the suspension was pending the outcome of the Pentagon’s investigation and any further investigations that were ordered.
Hamilton allegedly contacted members of the panel on the woman’s behalf to try and pressure them to sign off on promoting her to a battalion commander position. But despite his endeavors, the panel concluded she was unfit because of her “ineffective and counterproductive leadership.”
The female officer was also rejected by a different assessment panel, but she was later placed on a selection list for command. However, she has since been removed as a candidate and will need to recompete next year.
In the assessment, the process is completely blind, where five generals are pulled at random to interview an unnamed candidate hidden behind a curtain. Officers claim this is to avoid any bias. The assessment also consists of a physical fitness test, examinations of communication skills, and psychological evaluations.
Hamilton then reportedly asked for a second panel, claiming the first psychologist was “too negative.” It was approved because of “technical issues” and rescheduled for two days later, on Nov. 1, 2023. The approval of the second panel was unprecedented because Army rules state that a candidate must wait another year to be retested.
In the first panel, the female officer was found unfit in a 0-5 vote. But the second panel only rejected her in a 2-3 vote.
Hamilton’s ability to lobby on the officer’s behalf is not clear because the generals are supposed to be chosen shortly before the test. But Hamilton was able to contact three of the five panelists, according to Military.com.
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Once an investigation into Hamilton is complete, the Army said it would look into the assessment process to avoid it happening again.
“Following the completion of the [inspector general’s] work, the Army will undertake an additional review of CAP itself and the entirety of the command selection process to determine what additional steps may be needed to ensure maximum fairness and integrity in the command selection process,” Farrell said.