The highly decorated head of a critical Navy research office has been replaced with a 33-year-old former DOGE employee with no military experience in a new purge of senior officers at the Pentagon under Pete Hegseth.
A three-star general serving on the Joint Staff was also pushed out, according to reports.
The moves are the latest in a series of departures of top officials with decades of experience within the Defense Department in the Trump administration.
Rear Admiral Kurt Rothenhaus was recently removed from his position as chief of naval research at the Office of Naval Research (ONR). That office is charged with critical technical research and doling out billions in funding for the Navy.
His departure was first reported by The Bulwark.
The Navy chief was replaced with 33-year-old former DOGE employee Rachel Riley, who previously worked as a McKinsey consultant and has no previous military service.
Rothenhaus assumed command of ONR in June 2023. Its website still lists him as the head of naval research, and an active duty flag officer has historically led the office.
He is the recipient of the Legion of Merit, Meritorious Service Medal and various unit and sea service awards.
According to the Navy website, Rothenhaus’s operational assignments included serving as the combat systems/C5I officer on USS Harry S. Truman, and chief engineer on USS O’Brien. Additionally, he served on the staff of Destroyer Squadron 15 and on USS Fife, and completed a tour in Baghdad, Iraq.
He served as program manager for the Navy’s Tactical Networks Program Office and commanding officer of Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific. He was also deputy program manager for the Navy Communications and GPS Program Office.
The U.S. Navy confirmed the shake-up with The Daily Beast in a statement in which a spokesperson praised Riley as a Rhodes Scholar who has “led major defense and public-sector transformations as a partner at McKinsey and in senior government advisory roles, delivering measurable efficiency and performance gains.”
The spokesperson declined to share more information on Rothenhaus’s next post but thanked him for his service.
Riley’s LinkedIn profile says she was a partner at McKinsey’s Public Sector and People/Organizational Performance practice. Before that, she completed a PhD in Social Policy and MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.
She describes herself as “a proficient speaker of Mandarin Chinese and was a varsity member of Wofford College’s Lady Terriers Volleyball Team.”
Riley describes herself as a “government leader” and writes that she has been working on “a range of confidential projects since the Inauguration.” She says she has worked as a “Senior Advisor” in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services since January 2025, but multiple reports tied her to DOGE.
Lt. General Joe McGee, who served as the director of Strategy, Plans, and Policy on the Joint Staff, left his position earlier this month after sustained tension with Hegseth, according to CNN.
The three-star general reportedly pushed back against the TV personality-turned-defense secretary and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Dan Caine, on several issues, including the war in Ukraine and strikes in the Caribbean, sources told the network.
McGee was nominated for the promotion to lieutenant general and assigned as director with the Joint Staff under President Joe Biden.
The Pentagon confirmed to The Daily Beast that McGee was departing but pushed back on the report of tension.
“General McGee is retiring, and the War Department is grateful for his service,” said Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell.
Parnell called CNN’s reporting on it “100% fake news.”
However, as one source put it to the network, McGee ”had a target on his back for a while now.” He was reportedly also seen by some in Hegseth’s office as too close to the “old guard,” including former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley and former Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
The Trump administration has made a series of changes and fired numerous top military officials since Hegseth took office. In August, the defense secretary fired Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse, who led the Defense Intelligence Agency. In April, the president fired General Timothy Haugh as director of the National Security Agency.
Soon after taking office, the defense secretary also fired Air Force General C.Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shakeup.
More recently, the defense secretary drew harsh criticism for calling generals and flag officers to Virginia from around the world to rant about the “warrior ethos,” facial hair, and purging “woke” officials from the ranks.
Hegseth told top military brass gathered in Quanitico that if they did not like the direction he was taking the department, they could resign.
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