In a few hours after President Donald Trump fired Pam Bondi after mounting frustration with her failure to stem controversy over the release of Epstein files, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has asked Army Chief of Staff General Randy George to step down and take immediate retirement, reports said.
Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement that George "will be retiring from his position as the 41st Chief of Staff of the Army effective immediately. The Department of War is grateful for General George's decades of service to our nation. We wish him well in his retirement."
A senior Defense Department official told CBS News, "We are grateful for his service, but it was time for a leadership change in the Army."
Two other Army officers were removed from their roles, and they are General David Hodne, who led the Army's Transformation and Training Command, and Major General William Green, who headed the Army's Chaplain Corps. The Washington Post has already reported on Hodne and Green's ouster.
George previously served as the senior military assistant to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin from 2021 to 2022 during the Biden administration, following decades of service. A career infantry officer and West Point graduate, George first served in the first Gulf War and later in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Army chief of staff typically serves a four-year term. George was nominated for the position by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the Senate in 2023, meaning he would ordinarily have held the position until 2027.
The current vice chief of staff of the Army, General Christopher LaNeve, who was formerly Hegseth's military aide, will serve as acting Army chief of staff. LaNeve previously served as the commanding general of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division from 2022 to 2023.
Parnell said LaNeve is "a battle-tested leader with decades of operational experience and is completely trusted by Secretary Hegseth to carry out the vision of this administration without fault."
The U.S. Military Academy at West Point posted photos on social media on Thursday of George, saying he "shared experience-driven guidance with cadets preparing to lead" during a visit on March 25.
According to his biography on the Army's website, George received his commission as an infantry officer from West Point in 1988 and deployed during Operation Desert Shield, Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Before serving as Army chief of staff, he was vice chief of staff of the Army from 2022 to 2023.
Hegseth has now fired more than a dozen senior military officers, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General C.Q. Brown, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti, Air Force Vice Chief of Staff General James Slife, and the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse.
The ouster follows Hegseth's social media post lifting the suspension of the aircrew that flew by Kid Rock's house in Nashville last weekend. After the Army announced the suspension of the aviators involved and an administrative review, Hegseth overruled the Army, writing on his personal X account: "No punishment. No investigation. Carry on, patriots."
