Current military lawyers and legal experts told Military.com the administration’s firings of the Air Force, Army and Navy‘s top judge advocates general politicizes and sets an alarming precedent for a crucial job in the military, all as President Donald Trump has mused about using the military in unorthodox and potentially illegal ways.
Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced late Friday evening the firings of the top legal officers for the military services — those responsible for ensuring the Uniform Code of Military Justice is followed by commanders — as well as the Joint Chiefs chairman, the Navy’s top officer and Air Force vice chief.
As part of the judge advocates general purge, Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Plummer and Army Lt. Gen. Joseph Berger were fired. Navy Rear Adm. Lia Reynolds remains in the position because she was already performing the duties of the top lawyer for the sea service following the resignation of Vice Adm. Christopher French late last year. French had been in the job as the Navy’s top lawyer for just a few months.
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Hegseth told reporters Monday that the removals were necessary because he didn’t want them to pose any “roadblocks to orders that are given by a commander in chief.”
Those senior judge advocates general, or JAGs, of the military branches play the important role of setting each service’s legal priorities and interpreting military law for top leaders. Their roles have been historically viewed as apolitical, and they oversee everything from a wide variety of criminal cases involving the rank and file to making sure commanders are aware of international law in combat.
The defense secretary didn’t elaborate on what specific orders the military’s top lawyers could potentially try to block, but Trump has a history of saying he wants to use troops to enforce federal laws, especially in cities run by Democratic mayors.
“Ultimately, I want the best possible lawyers in each service to provide the best possible recommendations, no matter what, to lawful orders that are given, and we didn’t think those particular positions were well suited, and so we’re looking for the best,” Hegseth said.
One Air Force JAG officer told Military.com the move harms those who wear the uniform by removing the institutional knowledge those top officers hold — and could result in them being replaced with inexperienced lawyers.
“I think amongst the community, there’s just a lot of concern about who’s going to come next,” the currently serving Air Force JAG officer told Military.com. “People are very scared.”
Hegseth hinted to reporters Monday that, as with Trump’s pick of Dan “Razin” Caine to be Joint Chiefs chairman, the military may make non-traditional choices for the JAG posts. Caine, who is retired, has no experience leading a combatant command and has never served as a service chief, and would need to be brought back into military service and promoted to serve in the role.
“We’re opening it up to everybody to be able to be the top lawyer of those services,” Hegseth said, without elaborating further.
But the Air Force JAG officer told Military.com that not just anyone should hold those top positions.
“You can’t just pull a lawyer off the street and put him in that job, because there’s decades of policy that you kind of have to understand — the bigger picture of how we got to where we are – in order to steer the ship,” the JAG officer added.
The officer also said there are worries that the military justice system could soon become politicized as a result of the moves and that it may throw many uniformed lawyers into an uncomfortable position when administrations eventually change over to a different political party.
“I think everybody now will have a fear of ‘well, if I follow this Trump guidance, is the next administration going to fire me?'” the officer said. “We’re trying to be apolitical.”
Concerns over misuse of the military or bending of the law may be well-founded. Trump has a history of suggesting that he would use troops against U.S. citizens despite federal legal restrictions.
For example, during a March 2023 rally in Iowa, Trump suggested that he would use federal troops in cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco, which he argued have become crime dens.
“We cannot let it happen any longer. And one of the other things I’ll do — because you’re supposed to not be involved in that, you just have to be asked by the governor or the mayor to come in — the next time, I’m not waiting,” Trump said.
The judge advocates general could be at the center of such historic and consequential legal decisions as they are being weighed by the administration and military.
Retired Maj. Gen. Charles Dunlap Jr., the former deputy judge advocate general of the Air Force and a professor at Duke University, told Military.com in an emailed statement that military lawyers “have earned an international reputation for expertise, integrity and straightforwardness.”
“The U.S. public gives the military their sons and daughters. We owe it to them to provide those serving with the best possible legal advice from lawyers who not only know the law but live the military life,” Dunlap said. “No one wants U.S. troops to even be accused of war crimes, and providing nonpartisan expert legal advice from military [lawyers] is key to achieving that goal.”
The firing of the JAGs came alongside removals of top senior military officers late Friday evening, including Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown, who was serving as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, who stepped down in January and knew Brown when he served as the Air Force chief, said in a New York Times op-ed on Monday morning that the widespread dismissals were concerning, but especially those of top legal officers.
“What frightens me even more is the removal of three judge advocates general, the most senior uniformed legal authorities in the Defense Department,” Kendall wrote. “Their removal is one more element of this administration’s attack on the rule of law, and an especially disturbing part.”
Meanwhile, allies of the administration and Hegseth have argued that the move would actually help restore the reputation of at least the Navy’s legal command.
Tim Parlatore, a former Navy officer who went on to become a lawyer and represented a number of high-profile military clients, including Hegseth and Trump, argued in a video posted to social media Sunday that the last four heads of the Navy’s JAG office have had major issues with their leadership.
“One was found to have committed unlawful command influence by interfering in a court-martial for political purposes to keep an innocent man in jail,” Parlatore said, referring to the case of Vice Adm. James Crawford, who was found to have unlawfully weighed in on a rape case by a military court of appeals in 2018.
Parlatore also alleged that French, the Navy’s most recent judge advocate general, “rushed a retirement package two and a half months into the job, probably to avoid being prosecuted himself for misconduct.”
Parlatore offered no evidence for the claim in his post.
But other experts such as Dunlap added that, due to the nonpartisan nature of the military’s judge advocates general, they have often been a role model for other nations and have garnered great respect and even deference to U.S. perspectives on the law when working with allies and partners.
“I am not aware of any time in American history where the military’s most senior legal officers were fired en masse,” Dunlap told Military.com. “This can’t help our relations with our allies.”
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