Hegseth Asked Top Admiral to Resign After Months of Discord

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/hegseth-asked-top-admiral-to-resign-after-months-of-discord-9e7b357f?mod=WTRN_pos1

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  1. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shocked official Washington in mid-October when he announced that the four-star head of U.S. military operations in the Caribbean was retiring less than a year into his tenure.

    But according to two Pentagon officials, Hegseth asked Adm. Alvin Holsey to step down, a de facto ouster that was the culmination of months of discord between Hegseth and the officer. It began days after President Trump’s inauguration in January and intensified months later when Holsey had initial concerns about the legality of lethal strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, according to former officials aware of the discussions.

    Not long after, Hegseth announced that Holsey would be retiring.

    Hegseth’s move, which hasn’t been previously reported, sheds new light on a brewing controversy over the legality of the military’s campaign in the Caribbean, and raises questions over whether servicemembers with concerns about the attacks are being listened to.

    While Hegseth has dismissed a number of high-ranking military leaders since taking over the Pentagon, the ouster of a commander during an unfolding military operation was an extraordinary move, lawmakers and experts note.

    “Having [Holsey] leave at this particular moment, at the height of what the Pentagon considers to be the central action in our hemisphere, is just shocking,” says Todd Robinson, who served as assistant secretary for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs until January.

    A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment.

    The admiral, a 60-year-old Navy helicopter pilot nicknamed “Bull,” had seemed a good fit to carry out Trump’s military campaign against drug traffickers after the new president came into office. Holsey voiced support for stepping up interdiction of drug shipments and had experience at such missions.

    “My first deployment to the Southcom area of responsibility was over 33 years ago conducting counterdrug missions,” he told lawmakers at his Senate confirmation hearing in September 2024, arguing for a more muscular approach to “dismantle the drug cartels” responsible for tens of thousands of American deaths.

    Originally from rural Georgia, Holsey led a carrier strike group and, during Trump’s first term, served as the first commander of an international naval flotilla charged with protecting commercial shipping in the Persian Gulf and neighboring waters after Iran began seizing oil tankers in the area.

    A few weeks after he took over Southern Command Holsey met with the newly confirmed Hegseth on a secure video conference, and received his marching orders.

    “You’re either on the team or you’re not,” Hegseth told Holsey, according to notes from a participant. “When you get an order, you move out fast and don’t ask questions.”

    After Trump said in a March speech to Congress that he wanted to “reclaim” the Panama Canal, Hegseth ordered Holsey to develop military options to ensure unfettered American access to the strategic waterway, according to two former officials.

    Hegseth felt Holsey didn’t move quickly enough to develop the plans, the people said. After media reports about those options, Hegseth was suspicious that Holsey may have been the source of the leaks, one of the people said.

    After Holsey assembled plans, the two men were on good terms when they visited Panama together in April, the person said.

    Late in the summer, as the military began striking alleged drug boats, Holsey was initially concerned about murky legal authority for the boat strike campaign, according to former officials. With other military units under separate chains of command also involved, including elite special operations units, Holsey objected that parts of the operations fell outside his direct control, they said.

    But even before the boat strikes began, Hegseth had lost confidence in Holsey and was looking to replace him, according to a U.S. official.

    Since the strikes began in September, the Pentagon has ordered a major military buildup in the region and carried out at least 21 strikes on boats allegedly carrying drugs that have killed more than 80 people.

    Holsey, who declined to be interviewed, hasn’t publicly explained his decision to step down. He has continued to issue statements in broad support of the military campaign as his final day in uniform approaches on Dec. 12.

    A classified opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel argues that Trump’s designation of drug cartels as foreign terrorists makes the boats legitimate military targets, asserting that the groups are smuggling drugs to fund deadly and destabilizing actions against the U.S. and its allies, according to lawmakers and others who have read it.

    It also asserts that U.S. military personnel involved in the strikes are acting lawfully and won’t be subject to future prosecution, according to people who have read it.

    In addition to Holsey, Col. Paul Meagher, the command’s top lawyer, known as a judge advocate general, was initially concerned about the ramifications for U.S. servicemembers, because targeting the alleged drug boats stretched the boundaries of the legal definition of combatants engaging in military hostilities, according to a third U.S. official and a former senior U.S. official.

    Meagher didn’t respond to requests for comment about his concerns, which were previously reported by NBC News.

    Tensions between Holsey and Hegseth led to a confrontation at the Pentagon in early October. Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was also at the meeting, the former officials said.

    Hegseth offered no hint of the friction between the two men in an Oct. 16 post on X announcing Holsey’s departure. He said the admiral “has exemplified the highest standards of naval leadership.”

    Holsey said he would step down in a separate statement that day that didn’t mention the boat strikes.

    “Never before in my over 20 years on the committee can I recall seeing a combatant commander leave their post this early and amid such turmoil,” Rep. Adam Smith (D., Wash.), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said last month.

    In a goodbye message to sailors and Marines aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima deployed to the Caribbean, Holsey exhorted them to “sail strong, be bold, and strike. Southcom out.”

    While he was there, Hegseth announced yet another attack on a vessel, killing two people.

  4. Get rid of competent people. Replace them with loyalists. This is how you destroy America from within.

  5. >“You’re either on the team or you’re not,” Hegseth told Holsey, according to notes from a participant. “When you get an order, you move out fast and don’t ask questions.”

    Yeah, this is something you tell an E-2 when you’re a platoon leader, dipshit. This admiral is over a decade older than you and has more military experience than you have life experience. You should be *asking him questions* when you give him an order.

    Not surprising, since Pete literally peaked at being a platoon leader, but still disappointing to see he’s just as incompetent in private when there’s no media to impress.

  6. Circus music starts up as oil pillaging ramps up- we are transparently the bad guys with the biggest guns rn- ashamed to be an American at his point- my ticket was all blue tho, personally

  7. Why? Too fat or too competent? Maybe he just wouldn’t bring Hegseth booze and strippers when asked.

  8. When even a gung ho admiral questions orders…… that’s dicey

  9. Alvin Holsey is only 60. Someone who stood up to Hegseth in my books is candidate for a good future sec of defense.

  10. It is telling that Kegseth apparently told the Admiral in a early meeting that “When you get an order, you move out fast and don’t ask questions.” That is terrible advice to give top commanders! They are supposed to be in charge not flunkies. Moving fast without thinking will get your seamen and soldiers killed.

  11. The President is a child rapist. The secretary of defense is a murderer.

    All of these people are stupid as fuck, woefully unqualified for the positions they hold, and half of America is excited about this.

    This country is FUCKED.

  12. I fucking hate this country and the dipshit population that allows this. 

  13. Guy had the audacity to want to follow the law and obey the constitution.

  14. Why are all the black, female, and trans military leaders being pushed out, hmmm what’s left is the answer

  15. Decades of training and capability wiped out by a fox News drunk.

    Maga morons think this is fine. We are losing our strength to cosplay.

  16. Imagine the humiliation of being told to resign by a drunken imbecile like Hogsbreath.

  17. The Admiral should refuse to take the fall for Hegseth’s war crimes

  19. I read this as “…over Discord” and wasn’t at all surprised.

  21. They’re firing any nay sayers so that they can ingrain the military with this administration. They’re planning to never leave power.

  22. Because 1) he is smart, 2) he’s black, 3) he tipped his hand and made it clear he wasn’t going to blindly follow trump’s orders.

  23. Imagine working your whole life to finally reach the pinnacle of command within the Navy only for some drunkard Fox “news” host to tell you to commit warcrimes.

  24. I’m going to be *very* angry if retribution is not on the 2028 ticket.

  25. Without even seeing the picture I knew this would not be a white man.

  26. Yeah blame the people that serve under you rather than taking accountability for your fucked up orders. Hegseth is such a clown

  27. Was the discord caused by the admirals blackness? Pete seems to fire mostly people who are black and way more qualified than he is.

  28. I can’t imagine having a distinguished military career close under this incompetent chucklehead.

  30. I hate that when I see a headline regarding this administration, I have to wonder if they were fighting or they were raging at each other on Discord.

  32. There’re opportunities in Europe for servicemen with dignity.

  33. Headline should be, “ Admiral fired after refusing illegal orders”. Or something close to that. I believe that this man has more balls, character and ethics than most and should be looked at to help restore the integrity credibility and moral of the American military once this pile of crap government has been cleaned up.

  34. How would you like to have been in the military as a lifer and this tatted punk to disrespects a man defending his country?!

  35. Fire any adult in the room. That’s the current SOP.

  37. I was going to ask the inevitable question – Is he a POC – but then saw the pic. Of course he fucking is. JFC, these people in Trump’s team are a reprehensible bunch of crunts

  38. I mean, no one should be on discord especially a military leader, could leak stuff on there.

  39. I may be a white guy, but it seems like they are trying to boot the high ranking blacks out of the military, and government in general.

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