A Top US Commander is Fired – and What May Come Next

By Walter Pincus

Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist Walter Pincus is a contributing senior national security columnist for The Cipher Brief. He spent forty years at The Washington Post, writing on topics that ranged from nuclear weapons to politics. He is the author of Blown to Hell: America's Deadly Betrayal of the Marshall Islanders. Pincus won an Emmy in 1981 and was the recipient of the Arthur Ross Award from the American Academy for Diplomacy in 2010.  He was also a team member for a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 and the George Polk Award in 1978.  

OPINION — “She is a leader of character and integrity who I relied on for counsel and support as the Commandant of the Coast Guard and would do so again without hesitation. She has dedicated her entire professional life to serving her country and excelled in every position of responsibility. She has faced the most difficult challenges in a responsible, forthright and forward-looking manner … always acting in the best interest of the Service. Her dismissal is not a matter of her performance. It is political performance. One that should cause great concern for current and future military leaders.” (emphasis added)

That was the statement of retired Admiral Thad Allen, Coast Guard Commandant from 2006 to 2010, describing Adm. Linda Fagan, whose termination as Coast Guard Commandant was made public by the Trump administration on January 21.

According to the New York Times’ Helene Cooper, a military official said that “the admiral [Fagan] was told on the evening of [President Trump’s] Inauguration Day [January 20] that she had been fired, as she was waiting to have a photo taken with Mr. Trump at the Commander-in-Chief Ball.”

Both President Trump and the newly sworn in Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth talked about firing various senior military officers during 2024, but neither indicated Adm. Fagan would be a target. I’ll deal with other Trump national security firings below.

Admiral Fagan’s story

Adm. Fagan was the first woman to lead any U.S. military service, and had served as Coast Guard commandant since May 2022, when she was appointed by then-President Joe Biden. She was previously vice commandant and had worked her way up since her commissioning from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in 1985.

Coast Guard personnel learned of her dismissal when Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Benjamin Huffman sent an “all hands” bulletin at 7:25 a.m. on January 21 that read, “Under my statutory authority as the acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), I have relieved Adm. Linda L. Fagan of her duties as commandant of the United States Coast Guard. She served a long and illustrious career, and I thank her for her service to our nation.”

That day, a DHS statement to the media said that Fagan’s termination was due to “leadership deficiencies, operational failures, and inability to advance the strategic objectives of the U.S. Coast Guard.”

Among specifics cited were “ineffective deployment of Coast Guard assets to support national border security, including in intercepting fentanyl and other illicit substances…excessive focus on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and an ‘erosion of trust’ over the mishandling and cover-up of Operation Fouled Anchor, which was the Coast Guard’s internal investigation into sexual assault cases at the Coast Guard Academy [from the 1980s to the early 2000s].”

Two former Master Chief Petty Officers of the Coast Guard, Vincent Patton and Charles “Skip” Bowen, who served in the past as the senior enlisted member of the Coast Guard and the principal advisor to earlier Commandants, called Fagan’s firing “wrong,” and added, “We personally know Admiral Fagan to be a strong leader who has been incredibly positive for the Coast Guard.”

Patton and Bowen said, “This year, as in every year, the Coast Guard is holding the line against illegal incursions of all types including drugs, weapons, and people. Under Admiral Fagan’s leadership the Coast Guard has continued to defend the border despite a chronically insufficient budget, too few ships, personnel and other challenges not of Admiral Fagan’s making.”

As for the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) accusation, they said, “Decision makers may be conflating Admiral Fagan’s work to ensure that the Coast Guard’s culture provides a positive environment for the entire workforce, with an excessive focus on DEI initiatives. We don’t understand how anyone can object to improving the culture and ensuring that Coast Guard men and women live and work in a fair environment free from harassment and bullying.”

Patton and Bowen added, “The roots of Operation Fouled Anchor lie in leadership failures going back many decades to address harassment and assaults in the service. Admiral Fagan is the first Commandant to significantly address the problem. She has put in place major policy changes that will largely prevent such failures going forward.”

Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-Mich.), a member of the House Transportation Committee’s Coast Guard Subcommittee, said in a statement she had worked with Admiral Fagan and under her leadership, “we…saw Coast Guard recruitment and retention rise.”

Scholten also said, “A sudden, middle-of-the-night firing of a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff does not set our Coast Guard up for success, threatening our mission readiness and national security…Stability and a reliable succession of command are crucial for our service members. Ousting Admiral Fagan without announcing a plan for her successor has undermined that stability.”

I focus on Adm. Fagan’s sudden firing because as retired Adm. Allen hinted above, this may be the start of something much broader, military terminations based on politics more than national security.

A warning from the campaign – and what comes next

I remember, back in August 2024, at a campaign speech before the National Guard Association, then-candidate Trump said, “And when I take office we will ask for the resignations of every single official — we’ll get the resignations of every single senior official who touched the Afghanistan calamity, to be on my desk at noon on Inauguration Day.”

“You know, you have to fire people. You have to fire people when they do a bad job,” Trump added. “You’ve got to fire them like on ‘The Apprentice’ … You did a lousy job. You did a terrible, terrible disservice to our country. You get fired when that happens.”

With Senate confirmation Friday night and the swearing-in Saturday of Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary, it is worth asking, are we to expect the firings of other four-star generals and admirals?

I wrote a November 26, 2024, column about a Hegseth interview with Shawn Ryan, during which Hegseth called the Defense Department a “top-down organization.” He then explained that a new Secretary of Defense was needed in order to correct the “woke” direction that the Pentagon has taken since the Obama administration.

Hegseth then said, “First of all, you’ve got to fire the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs [currently Air Force General Charles Q. Brown] and you’ve got to fire…any general that was involved, general, admiral, whatever, that was involved in any of the DEI woke shit, got to go. Like you’re in for warfighting and that’s it. That’s the only litmus test we care about.”

I bring up last year’s Trump and Hegseth statements because this first week of the Trump administration has seen a flurry of government firings, beyond Adm. Fagan, and not just of DEI employees.

The Friday night firings

The still-unexplained late-night Friday Trump White House terminations of 17 federal Inspectors General included the Defense Department’s IG Robert P. Storch. The IGs received emails from White House personnel director Sergio Gor which stated that “due to changing priorities” they had been terminated immediately.

The conservative Breitbart News, reporting the IG firings, noted House Republican criticism of Storch’s DoD IG report on the January 6, 2021 protests, and that Federal Election Commission records show that Storch had contributed $750 to former President Barack Obama’s campaign.”

The IG firings have been challenged by the chairman of the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, Hannibal “Mike” Ware, inspector general of the Small Business Administration. In a letter to Gor late Friday, Ware wrote, “At this point, we do not believe the actions taken are legally sufficient to dismiss Presidentially Appointed, Senate Confirmed Inspectors General.”

Under the Inspector General Act of 1978, Congress must receive a 30-day notice before an Inspector General is dismissed. A 2022 amendment to that law requires a substantive explanation, including case-specific reasons, for the removal or transfer of an Inspector General. 

I site the IG situation to show that some IGs may fight Trump administration firings.

The Joint Chiefs Chairman

Joint Chiefs Chairman Brown may have used a different tactic. Back on December 14, when speculation about his and other top officer firings was in the air, Brown held a widely publicized 20-minute conversation with then-President-elect Trump as they shared time together in a box during the second quarter of the Army-Navy football game. Also in Trump’s box at the time was Defense Secretary-designate Hegseth.

NBC later reported that Brown “congratulated Trump on his election and made it clear he was ready to work with the president,” adding that “[Trump] liked that.” Trump later told someone the conversation went well and that Brown was “doing a good job,” according to the NBC story.

Last week Brown attended Trump’s inaugural ceremony at the Capitol, and afterwards he told an NBC reporter he planned to remain on the job. His term runs out in September 2027.

Thus, it was no surprise that when Hegseth showed up at the Pentagon yesterday for his first day of work as Defense Secretary, it was Joint Chiefs Chairman Brown who was the first person on the steps of the building to greet him. And when a reporter asked about the Joint Chiefs, Hegseth responded, “I look forward to working with them.”

However, in answer to a final question as he entered the building, Hegseth did say, “We’re going to make sure there’s accountability for what happened in Afghanistan,” reflecting Trump’s threat last August before the National Guard Association to oust those senior officials associated with “that calamity.”

One message I took away from Hegseth’s brief remarks on arrival at the Pentagon yesterday: He mentioned directions given by the President or the White House six times, making it abundantly clear that Trump finally has a civilian Defense Secretary who will give him direct control over Defense Department activities.

We must now wait and see how Trump uses that power, and how the military reacts.

The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals.  Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

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