Opinion
SecDef’s Firing Of Service TJAGS: Long Overdue
By Judge Bruce Tucker Smith
March 21, 2025
On February 24, SecDef Hegseth fired the Army and Air Force’s top uniformed lawyers (The Judge Advocates General or “TJAG” for short). Immediately thereafter, two retired Air Force JAG Major Generals, Charles J. Dunlap and Steven J. Lepper, published their unified outrage online. Their well-timed writings stoked the political left’s faux furor occasioned by President Trump’s firing of JCS Chairman Brown and CNO Franchetti.
The comments of both retired generals should be rejected for the simple reason that they ignore the most basic qualification for being an attorney, military or otherwise--an attorney must have the confidence and trust of the client. This qualification applies doubly to senior military officers. And it is very clear that the dismissed TJAGs did not enjoy the confidence of their clients--the SecDef and the President--and for good reasons. Their embrace of the pernicious and anti-merit DEI initiatives, which violate US law and are inimical to good order, morale, and discipline, marked them as unreliable counselors. Add to that their failure to properly manage and correct the disastrous DoD mandatory COVID vaccination program, leading to its unprecedented wholesale withdrawal and extension of reinstatement to those unfairly forced out of the service, and it's no wonder the civilian leadership wanted different military lawyers.
Both former JAG Generals, (with whom I had previously served), essentially claimed, rather indignantly, that SecDef Hegseth had overstepped his legal/moral authority and, by his action, imperiled the Constitution, the Department of Defense, and the rule of law.
https://armedforces.press/secdefs-firing-of-service-tjags-long-overdue/
