Despite winning the election just a week ago, President-elect Donald Trump and his transition team aren't wasting any time preparing to staff the federal government — and the military in particular – with diehard loyalists.
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the Trump transition team is currently preparing an executive order that would allow him to pave the way for new military leadership that is squarely in the MAGA camp. The draft order would create a so-called "warrior board" made up of retired senior U.S. military personnel who would recommend the firing of generals and admirals who are "lacking in requisite leadership qualities."
The Journal's Vivian Salama, Lara Seligman and Nancy A. Youssef wrote that while the commander in chief can technically already fire any military official, his new warrior board could "create a chilling effect on top military officers, given the president-elect’s past vow to fire 'woke generals,' referring to officers seen as promoting diversity in the ranks at the expense of military readiness."
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According to the paper, the draft order would establish credentials for new military leaders based on "leadership capability, strategic readiness and commitment to military excellence." But the finer details of how the board plans to evaluate candidates for military leadership based on those criteria have not been revealed. One legal expert posited that this is merely cover for Trump to appoint generals based on how loyal they would be to both his political agenda and him personally.
"This looks like an administration getting ready to purge anyone who will not be a yes man,” former U.S. Army lawyer Eric Carpenter, who teaches military law at Florida International University's College of Law, told the Journal. “If you are looking to fire officers who might say no because of the law or their ethics, you set up a system with completely arbitrary standards, so you can fire anyone you want.”
The draft order also appears to mirror what Marquette University professor Risa Brooks warned about in an article for the Council on Foreign Relations' Foreign Affairs publication earlier this year. She wrote in March that "politicians may seek to impose ideological litmus tests in promotions and appointments of senior officers," and that "the result would be profound damage to national security."
"Today, military leaders strive to be impartial in offering advice to the president, lawmakers, and other civilian officials about the use of force. In the future, they may instead tailor their recommendations to the interests of their preferred political party," she wrote. "Apart from undermining the rigor of the advisory process, such internal politicization would erode the overall unity of the military as partisan tensions spread through the ranks. And the American people’s trust in the military would decline as they came to see it as just another politicized institution, as many already see the Supreme Court."
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The executive order is also squarely in line with what Trump previously communicated to then-chief of staff John Kelly, a four-star Marine general who was his longest-serving chief of staff, according to an interview he gave to the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg in October. In 2018, Trump told Kelly that he wanted the same kind of generals "that Hitler had," because they were "totally loyal."
Trump also had a tense relationship with Gen. Mark Milley, whom he appointed as chairman to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2019, putting him in charge of the entire U.S. military. Milley told journalist Bob Woodward that Trump was "fascist to the core," and "the most dangerous person in America." Should Trump sign the executive order creating the "warrior board," it's unlikely he'll have any top military brass who are out of step with him politically for the next four years.
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Click here to read the Journal's report in full (subscription required).
