Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stonewalled a behind-the-scenes effort within the Army and on Capitol Hill to extend the career of an influential general, people familiar with the matter said, leading to that officer submitting retirement paperwork and preparing to step down.
Gen. Christopher Donahue, head of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, will leave his role on July 2 after an unusually brief 18-month tenure, these people said, some speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters. Hegseth’s move has exasperated some Army officials, considering Donahue’s background as a highly regarded Special Operations commander and the secretary’s stated focus on making the military more lethal.
“He’s singularly our best warfighter at every level,” one retired senior Army officer said of Donahue.
The general’s expected departure makes him the latest apparent casualty in Hegseth’s purge of senior military leaders whom the secretary has deemed insufficiently loyal to the Trump administration or branded “woke” for their past defense of diversity initiatives.
Hegseth has fired or otherwise removed dozens of generals and admirals, often without specifying a reason. In April, the Army’s top officer, Gen. Randy George, and two other generals were forced into retirement. The administration has not yet nominated anyone for those roles.
Through a spokesman, Donahue declined to comment. A spokesman for Hegseth, Joel Valdez, referred questions to the Army. A spokeswoman for the Army, Cynthia Smith, acknowledged in a statement on Wednesday that Donahue will step down but did not address why.
“Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, deputy commander, U.S. Army Europe and Africa will perform the duties of the commanding general,” Smith’s statement said. “The Army thanks Gen. Donahue for his leadership of U.S. Army Europe and Africa.”
Donahue submitted retirement paperwork after months of uncertainty about his future and as Hegseth’s team plans to downgrade his role and many others across the services to three-star commands. The general left the door open to taking another position, but no next assignment has been offered, three people familiar with the matter said.
The general’s pending retirement was first reported by the Atlantic.
Advocates for Donahue have made the case that he would be a good fit to replace George as the Army’s chief of staff or become its No. 2 officer if Hegseth elevates Gen. Christopher LaNeve, a former top military aide to the defense secretary who became vice chief in February, people familiar with the situation said. LaNeve was nominated for that position after Hegseth forced another officer, Gen. James Mingus, into early retirement last year.
Some also saw Donahue as a candidate to take over Army Transformation and Training Command, an organization that oversees efforts to train and prepare soldiers for war. Its commander, Gen. David Hodne, was fired by Hegseth in April along with George. Top Army leaders had considered Hodne a contender to become chief of staff, officials said.
Donahue had long been seen within the military as a transformative leader and a potential future chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or Army chief of staff.
As commander of the elite Delta Force, he played a key role in leading operations against the Islamic State militant group in Iraq and Syria. He went on to serve as a top Special Operations commander in Afghanistan and lead the 82nd Airborne Division and 18th Airborne Corps before taking his current role in Germany in December 2024.
But Donahue became a political target after the chaotic and deadly U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan under the Biden administration, even though he was dispatched there as commander of the 82nd Airborne Division days after the U.S.-backed government collapsed and the Pentagon decided that reinforcements were necessary as Taliban fighters swept into the capital.
Donahue’s soldiers arrived at the airport in Kabul with weapons drawn, people familiar with the matter said. He met with Taliban leaders as U.S. military officials sought to get control of the airfield and issued them a pointed warning, he later told military investigators who examined the episode, according to documents first reported on by The Washington Post in 2022.
“We told them that we would control the gates and they would push people out,” Donahue told investigators. “We expressed that they will comply, because if they fight us on this we would be able to kill more of them than they would ever hope to kill of us. After that their tone changed.”
Thirteen U.S. troops and about 170 Afghans were killed in an Islamic State suicide bombing near the end of the evacuation effort on Aug. 26, 2021. They were not under Donahue’s control at the time, officials said.
Four days later, the U.S. military departed the airfield. The Pentagon released a widely publicized photograph of Donahue stepping onto an aircraft as the last American service member to exit the war, elevating the general’s profile.
In 2024, Donahue’s nomination to his current role was placed on hold by then-Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Oklahoma), now the Trump administration’s secretary of homeland security, threatening the promotion. Mullin released the hold after days of advocacy by top Army leaders and lawmakers.
At that time, critics argued that someone needed to be held accountable for how the Afghanistan war ended. Among them was Anthony Tata, a retired Army general who now serves as the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.
“Aren’t commanders accountable?” Tata wrote on social media then. “Under Chris Donahue’s command, 13 servicemen and women were killed with dozens of others grievously wounded, not to mention the hundreds of civilians. Many reports show the intel was there to prevent or mitigate the attack.”
Tata added in his post that hundreds, if not thousands, of U.S. citizens were left behind and that Donahue had “reaped the accolades for being the last boots on the ground, as evidenced by the staged photo.”
“Is this what success today looks like?” Tata wrote.
Donahue’s advocates have argued that he did not have control of the airport’s Abbey Gate, where the suicide bombing occurred, and brought a measure of order and security in what became a weeks-long crisis.
“He did everything he could,” said one supporter who served with him. “This is someone who carried out their duty, even if they disagreed with the policies behind them.”
Last year, Donahue was seen as a potential nominee to become the head of U.S. European Command, which oversees all American military operations in Europe. But he was bypassed by Hegseth, who nominated then-Air Force Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich.
Hegseth has raised the Afghanistan photograph of Donahue in some private discussions about that decision, people familiar with the matter said.
Before the start of the second Trump administration, Donahue also scoffed at assertions, pushed by Republicans in recent years, that the American military had gotten weak as a consequence of efforts to diversify its ranks.
“We’re focused on people, war-fighting, and making sure that we’re prepared for the next fight,” he said in 2023. “There ain’t no ‘woke’ here.”
It’s unclear whether those remarks played any role in Hegseth bypassing Donahue.
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