Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has reportedly pulled retired General Mark Milley’s security detail and ordered the Department of Defense IG to convene a board to determine if grounds exist to reduce Milley in rank for actions that “undermine the chain of command” during President Donald Trump’s first term.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will announce he is “immediately pulling” retired Gen. Mark Milley’s personal security detail and security clearance, multiple senior administration officials tell Fox News.
The secretary is also directing the new acting Inspector General to conduct a review board to determine if enough evidence exists for Gen. Milley to be stripped of a star in retirement based on his actions to “undermine the chain of command” during President Donald Trump’s first term, officials say.
The Pentagon will also be removing a second portrait of Gen. Milley inside the Pentagon. This one is from the Army’s Marshall Corridor on the third floor honoring his service as chief-of-staff of the Army. Fox is told the removal of this second portrait will take place as soon as tonight. This means there will be no more portraits of Gen. Milley inside the Pentagon.
The first portrait of Gen. Milley, from his time as the U.S. military’s top officer, was removed from the Pentagon last week on Inauguration Day less than two hours after President Trump was sworn into office.
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The case to reduce Milley to three-star rank would hinge of how the IG, and later Hegseth, views Milley’s actions to 1) call out the National Guard for the January 6 speech and the burning of parts of DC during the George Floyd Memorial riots, 2) calling Trump “fascist to the core!” in an interview he gave to Bob Woodward while Trump was still president, and 3) the infamous incident where he called “Chinese counterpart on two occasions in the final months of Trump’s first term, warning him the U.S. military had no plans to strike China in a bid to avert tensions between nuclear-armed countries.”
Joe Biden granted Milley a pardon during his fading hours in the Oval Office and perhaps beyond his fading hours of sentience (NEW: Biden Pardons Fauci, Milley, Cheney, Others in Shocking Abuse of Presidential Power – RedState). While the pardon gives him immunity from prosecution, the decision to reduce him in rank is an administrative action, not a legal one.
