(WASHINGTON) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth blocked the promotions to one-star admirals of several senior Navy officers who had already been selected for promotion by a board of senior Navy admirals, three sources familiar with the move told ABC News.
Secretaries of Defense have the authority to intervene in promotion lists for reasons of cause, but it is unusual to see Hegseth now having intervened in both the Army and Navy’s most recent promotions to the one-star rank.
The Navy officers removed from the Navy’s promotion list included African Americans, women, and white males who were removed for a variety of reasons, including their participation or involvement in military Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, sources said.
The official promotion list was released by the Pentagon on May 22.
Separately, Hegseth also made efforts to get one of his senior military aides on the promotion list or to get him promoted, sources added. However, Capt. William Francis Jr., a Navy SEAL serving as Hegseth’s assistant, could not be reviewed by the promotion board because he did not meet certain criteria, such as heading a major command, according to sources.
The New York Times was first to report Hegseth’s block of the promotions and the effort to promote Capt. Francis.
Hegseth’s tenure as defense secretary has been marked by his stated intent to remove policies he has framed as creating a “woke” military under previous administrations.
His critique of the military’s culture comes as minorities are quickly making up more of the ranks and as women have started to expand their footprint in the senior ranks.
Though Hegseth’s string of unexplained firings and promotion blocking has severely curtailed those gains for women.
The Pentagon’s chief spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement to ABC News, “As we’ve said before, military promotions are given to those who have earned them. The Department will never consider the color of a service member’s skin or their gender as a factor in promotions. Under President Trump and Secretary Hegseth, meritocracy reigns supreme at the War Department.”
Since Hegseth became defense secretary, 19 senior generals or flag officers have been fired or sidelined, with several of them being women or minorities.
Hegseth’s intervention in the Navy promotion list is similar to his intervention in the Army’s promotion list to brigadier generals, where four colonels were removed from the list. Those four colonels included two African Americans and two women.
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