Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a Pentagon meeting last year, passed a note to Army Secretary Dan Driscoll about one of Driscoll’s top aides, asking, in effect: Why hasn’t this guy been fired yet?
The aide, Colonel Dave Butler, a former infantry officer, is a longtime leader in Army public affairs (not a specialty Hegseth embraces) who worked closely with the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley (whom Hegseth despises). On Thursday, Hegseth finally got his way: Butler was pushed out.
The issue was not that Butler was incompetent in his job; quite the opposite. Both Driscoll and the Army’s chief of staff, General Randy George, are said to have valued his advice, experience, and the reforms that he initiated—and it was their endorsement, when combined with Butler’s previous assignment with Milley, that ruined his chance of making the rank of general.
Defense secretaries don’t usually get involved in decisions about the careers of colonels and other mid-level commanders, given that the lead civilian in the Pentagon is supposed to oversee war planning, a department of 3 million people, and America’s nuclear arsenal. Ever since the World War I era, when the United States established a large-scale standing force, individual branches have typically had a say in promotions and other personnel decisions. These choices are supposed to be based on merit.
Hegseth, more than any other of his predecessors, has weighed in on the makeup of the military’s top leaders. He has fired or sidelined dozens of three- and four-star officers, in many cases without any clear reason other than their perceived disloyalty to Hegseth’s beliefs, alleged support for diversity programs, or coziness with people regarded as foes of the administration.
With Butler’s removal, Hegseth has displayed a willingness to reach further down in the ranks—there are roughly 4,000 colonels in the Army alone—and demonstrated that, one year after his appointment, he still doesn’t feel that his campaign of purges has gone far enough.
“The secretary of defense is spending his time doing things that those well below his pay grade should be doing,” Kori Schake, who directs foreign and defense policy at the American Enterprise Institute and released a book last year about civil-military relations, told us. “And he is not doing the things that only the secretary of defense can do.”
Hegseth’s office referred our questions to the Army. The spokesperson Cynthia Smith said in an email that Butler would retire: “His integral role in the Army’s transformation efforts will be missed.”
Butler, who declined to comment, wasn’t a typical colonel. Over the past dozen years, he emerged as a powerful force within the Army as an adviser to the top officers, including Milley, who clashed repeatedly with Trump, particularly after the summer of 2020, when Milley had said that he regretted walking alongside Trump after federal forces cleared Lafayette Square of protesters. Before that, Butler worked under the now-retired General Austin “Scott” Miller, the head of Joint Special Operations Command and a onetime chief of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. That put Butler in the room for major decisions both for the Army—he helped organize the Army’s 250th-anniversary parade in Washington, D.C., in June—and for U.S. defense policy more broadly.
More recently, Butler served as a top adviser to Driscoll and George, and he was understood to be highly valued by both men. But Butler was also divisive, in part because of his influence over so many parts of the military—and the public-affairs community.
Hegseth and Driscoll have had a tense year. Driscoll, a confidant of Vice President Vance, has emerged as a rival at the Pentagon to the former Fox News host. Unlike Hegseth—who arrived in his position following a bruising confirmation process that surfaced allegations of mismanagement, heavy drinking, and sexual assault—Driscoll cuts a clean-living profile, has won allies in Congress with his more genial demeanor, and at times has outshone his boss.
While Hegseth has focused on internal purges and the campaign of strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, Driscoll’s star has risen with his participation in U.S. efforts to mediate an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Driscoll was in Geneva today on that assignment, working with two of Trump’s special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. (Driscoll couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.)
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After last year’s meeting where Hegseth questioned Driscoll about Butler, both Driscoll and George kept Butler in their inner circle. For the Army, it was not just about protecting Butler’s place. It was also about standing up for Driscoll’s and George’s roles in deciding who leads their force.
Top Army officials, over Hegseth’s objections, decided to keep Butler in the promotion queue during the past year. But Hegseth’s stonewalling of Butler’s advancement was one reason that a larger group of proposed promotions, which needed sign-off from Pentagon leadership before being sent to the White House, was delayed for months, defense officials told us. Some Army officials had hoped that the extra time would ultimately benefit Butler. But after another meeting between Hegseth and Driscoll on Thursday, Driscoll followed Hegseth’s order and removed Butler. “The Army delayed this inevitable decision and in the end Hegseth said, ‘Enough’s enough,’” one defense official told us.
Butler’s ouster wasn’t primarily a result of Hegseth’s rivalry with Driscoll, according to people familiar with the situation. Rather, they said, it stemmed more from Hegseth’s antipathy toward military officials closely associated with Milley. Hegseth and Trump have both accused Milley of treason, and Trump once suggested that Milley should be executed. One of Hegseth’s first actions after taking office was removing Milley’s official portrait from its place in a Pentagon hallway. Earlier this month, Hegseth replaced General James Mingus, the Army’s widely respected second in command who also had worked on the Joint Staff under Milley. Hegseth installed General Christopher LaNeve, one of his own aides, in the post. LaNeve supported the decision to remove Butler, a former defense official told us.
Hegseth and his staff have shown a particular interest in Pentagon PR. An Air Force colonel who served as spokesperson for the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Dan Caine was removed over a years-old social-media post asking for better support for Afghans as U.S. forces withdrew. Hegseth also censured Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat from Arizona, after the retired Navy captain published a video urging troops to refuse unlawful orders. And Hegseth implemented a rule that effectively required reporters to seek Pentagon approval before publishing stories or they would risk losing their press accreditation, leading hundreds of journalists to walk out in the fall.
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News of Butler’s ouster appeared to have the effect that Hegseth desired as word spread across the military’s public-affairs community. Officials told us that they feared angering Hegseth and also saw his interference as a direct contradiction of what the military teaches its commanders: that strong leaders focus on the job the military needs them to do, not on anyone else’s role.
“Hegseth’s decision speaks to a broader effort to shape the long-term trajectory of the military,” one former defense official told us. “By getting involved at the colonel rank, Hegseth could reshape the military three, five, seven, even 10 years down the road.”
Such micromanaging in the officer ranks because of political or personal animus risks further polarizing the military and undermining its status as one of America’s final refuges from hyper-partisanship.
