President-elect Donald Trump vowed to root out the "woke TV generals" from the U.S. military brass, and that reportedly might include court martial for top Biden administration military officials responsible for the deadly Afghanistan withdrawal.
On the campaign trail, Trump vowed accountability, and his legal team is weighing potential actions against senior Biden military officers, according to reports.
Among the bandied about actions include an independent commission to investigate the withdrawal decision-making, execution, and failures of those responsible. The recall of senior officers might assess charges as sever as treason, according to The National Pulse.
The officers do have the defense of following President Joe Biden's orders, however.
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Matt Flynn is not involved in the transition investigation of using court-martial, according to Flynn attorney Mark Zaid, despite sources suggesting otherwise.
Trump on the campaign trail has suggested his former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, could be executed for treason.
"He will destroy the Department of Defense, frankly. He will go in and he will dismiss generals who stand up for the Constitution," Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Jack Reed, D-R.I., who is handing over the gavel, told Reuters.
Trump has openly started his desire to "fire" the "woke military" leaders he has rebuked as "TV generals" — all while, notably, he has nominated TV host Pete Hegseth to be his defense secretary.
Among the other potential targets of pink slips under Trump is the current chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. C.Q. Brown, a four-star general who issued a video message about discrimination in the ranks in the days after the May 2020 death of George Floyd that roiled race riots and anti-Trump sentiment in the summer of that presidential election campaign.
"The chairman along with all of the service members in our armed forces remain focused on the security and defense of our nation and will continue to do so, ensuring a smooth transition to the new administration of President-elect Trump," said Brown's spokesperson, Navy Capt. Jereal Dorsey.
Trump's vice president-elect, JD Vance, voted as a senator last year against confirming Brown to become the top U.S. military officer, and has been a critic of perceived resistance to Trump's orders within the Pentagon.
"If the people in your own government aren't obeying you, you have got to get rid of them and replace them with people who are responsive to what the president's trying to do," Vance said in an interview with Tucker Carlson before the election.
Trump's strongest anti-woke messaging during the campaign took aim at transgender troops, a contention Hegseth has shared in recent months before he was announced as a Trump Cabinet nominee.
Trump has previously banned transgender service members and posted a campaign ad portraying them as weak, with the vow that "WE WILL NOT HAVE A WOKE MILITARY!"
Trump has suggested the U.S. military could play an important role in many of his policy priorities, from tapping National Guard and possibly active-duty troops to help carry out a mass deportation of undocumented immigrants to deploying them to address domestic unrest.
Career civil servants at the Pentagon could be subjected to loyalty tests, current and former officials say. Trump allies have publicly embraced using executive orders and rule changes to replace thousands of civil servants with those aligned with his agenda.
A senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters there was increasing concern within the Pentagon that Trump would purge career civilian employees from the department.
"I'm deeply concerned about their ranks," the official said, adding that several colleagues had expressed concern about the future of their jobs.
Career civil servants are among the nearly 950,000 non-uniformed employees who work within the U.S. military and in many cases have years of specialized experience.
Trump vowed during the campaign to give himself the power to gut the federal workforce across the government, and he has announced Vivek Ramaswamy and billionaire endorser Elon Musk are going to tag-team a Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in the depths of the government, including what Trump has called the politicized "deep state" that has claimed has worked to undermine him in his first administration.
Information from Reuters was used to compile this report.