The Department of Defense Office of Inspector General is reviewing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s order to look into retired Gen. Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and determine whether he should be demoted.
President Donald Trump appointed Milley to serve as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but their relationship soured and ultimately crumbled toward the end of his first term. Milley retired from military service more than a year ago.
On Tuesday, Hegseth directed the DOD OIG “to conduct an inquiry into the facts and circumstances surrounding Gen. Milley’s conduct so that the secretary may determine whether it is appropriate to reopen his military grade review determination,” Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot said.
The office “received the request and we’re reviewing it,” spokeswoman Mollie Halpern told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday.
Days earlier, Trump fired more than a dozen inspectors general, including Robert Storch, who served as the Defense Department inspector general since assuming the responsibilities in December 2022. He has been temporarily replaced by Steven Stebbins, who was the principal deputy inspector general. He has served in the DOD OIG since 2015.
Trump will presumably appoint a permanent replacement who will need Senate confirmation.
Much of the Trump-Milley tension dates back to the time after the 2020 presidential election but before Trump left office.
At that time, Trump was contesting the election results, and Milley was concerned that Trump could carry out a military attack. He called his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng, twice around this time, one right before the election and again afterward.
In one of those calls, he allegedly told Li that he would tip him off “if we’re going to attack,” according to Peril, by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, though the book also notes that Milley said, ”If there was a war or some kind of kinetic action between the United States and China, there’s going to be a buildup, just like there has been always in history. And there’s going to be tension. And I’m going to be communicating with you pretty regularly.”
Trump has accused Milley of committing treason with these phone calls and said it could be punishable by death. Milley has, in turn, accused the president of being a fascist.
In 2023, Trump said the call was “so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been death! A war between China and the United States could have been the result of this treasonous act.” In his retirement speech, Milley said, “We don’t take an oath to a king, or queen, or tyrant or dictator. We don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution.”
On Tuesday, Hegseth’s chief of staff, Joe Kasper, said, “Undermining the chain of command is corrosive to our national security, and restoring accountability is a priority for the Defense Department under President Trump’s leadership.”
On his final day in the Oval Office, Former President Joe Biden gave Milley a preemptive pardon, which he said “should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense.”
Milley said he was “deeply grateful” for the pardon and wants to avoid “fighting those who unjustly might seek retribution for perceived slights.”
The department also took down two portraits of Milley, one of which was only unveiled weeks ago, while Hegseth also revoked the authorization for his security clearance and his security detail.
Several Trump administration officials from the first term have faced threats from Iran due to their involvement in the January 2020 U.S. airstrike that targeted and killed Gen. Qassem Soliemani. Tehran vowed to avenge the strike by targeting any U.S. official involved in it.
The Biden-era Justice Department uncovered an assassination plan that targeted Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, and another one that targeted Trump himself. Despite that threat, Trump has opted to stop the security protection for Bolton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and one of his advisers, Brian Hook, and Hegseth did the same for Milley.
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A Pentagon spokesperson declined to comment about any other official whom Hegseth ordered the acting inspector general to look into, whether he decided to suspend the security clearance or security protection of anyone else.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton (R-AR) warned that the threat from Iran is “persistent” and “real.” He also called on Trump to “revisit the decision for those people who are being targeted by Iran.” Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) “agrees with [Cotton] wholeheartedly,” according to a spokesperson.