Rear Adm. James McPherson (Ret.):
Well, there’s a common denominator among the three judge advocate generals of the services that he removed. They were all selected, they were all nominated by President Biden and they were confirmed by the Senate in the Biden administration.
So, clearly, the commonality is, they came into office during the Biden administration, and that’s why the secretary wants — wanted to get rid of them, so he could put his own people in there. What’s interesting is, he directed the service secretaries to nominate names for him.
The law requires that the service secretary convene a board, and that board consists of senior officers, line officers, who will review the records of the eligible officers, that is, captains and colonels, and make a recommendation to the service secretary of the next judge advocate general.
The service secretary forwards that to the White House and it’s the president’s decision. So it’s not going to be the secretary of defense’s decision. It’s going to be a decision based upon, again, a recommendation that comes from a board, something also that Secretary Hegseth in his time with the FOX News interview seemed not to understand.
