A top Pentagon officer whose abrupt retirement came as a shock to his colleagues was reportedly forced out after repeated clashes with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Admiral Alvin Holsey, the head of U.S. Southern Command, had been in charge of U.S. forces in Latin America, which included Donald Trump’s crackdown on “narco-terrorists” in the area.
Questions were asked after Hegseth announced on social media in October that the four-star officer would be retiring at the end of the year after 37 years in the Navy. Holsey, 60, only started the job, which usually has a three-year term, in November last year—meaning he was leaving two years early.
At the time, rumors flew that his departure was due to clashes with Hegseth over the Caribbean mission.
The Washington Post reported at the time that Hegseth, 45, had grown “disenchanted” with Holsey and wanted him to step aside—a claim denied by the Defense Department.
A new report in The Wall Street Journal confirms that Hegseth actually asked the former helicopter pilot to step down after months of feuding between the pair.
Citing two Pentagon officials aware of the discussions, the Journal report says the bad blood began after Trump’s inauguration in January and heated up after Holsey questioned the legality of the fatal strikes on alleged “narco-terrorist” boats in the Caribbean.
The Daily Beast has contacted the Pentagon for comment.
Holsey was just one of a number of senior military leaders who have left since the former Fox News host got his job at the Pentagon, anointing himself the “Secretary of War.”
But demanding that a commander quit during a major military operation is highly unusual, the Journal reports.
“Having [Holsey] leave at this particular moment, at the height of what the Pentagon considers to be the central action in our hemisphere, is just shocking,” Todd Robinson, who was assistant secretary for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs until January, told the publication.
“Serving as your commander and deputy for the past 34 months has been a tremendous honor,” Holsey wrote on X in October.
Holsey has been silent since the announcement of his retirement, declining all interview requests.
In October, a Pentagon source told the Daily Beast, “Admiral Holsey didn’t resign in protest and anyone writing that has no clue what they’re talking about.”
Hegseth has been mired in controversy after reportedly ordering that everybody should be killed in a strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean in September, prompting follow-up strikes against two survivors that amount to a war crime.
One of his former colleagues at Fox News has said it gives him “no pleasure to say” that the defense secretary must be prosecuted for war crimes.
“I wish the White House would reveal to us the laws on which the president is relying. He says he has an opinion from the Justice Department, but neither the Justice Department nor the White House will offer it for public scrutiny,” Andrew Napolitano, who now works for the MAGA-friendly Newsmax, said on Tuesday.
“And it gives me no pleasure to say what I’m about to say, because I worked with Peter Hegseth for seven or eight years at Fox News, but this is an act of a war crime. Ordering survivors, who the law requires be rescued, instead to be murdered. There’s absolutely no legal basis for it,” Napolitano said.
A retired judge, Napolitano, 75, was kicked out of Fox News in 2021 following claims of sexual misconduct.
Hegseth has been dealing with the fallout from a report in The Washington Post that he was behind September’s “kill everybody” order.
Navy Adm. Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley, said to have issued the actual order to fire again to wipe out the two survivors, but did so only under Hegseth’s authority.
On Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, Hegseth said he watched the initial strike on the boat but claimed he did not “personally see survivors” clinging to the burning wreckage. He said he did not “stick around” for the second strike and, because he was busy, had already “moved on to my next meeting.”
“I did not personally see survivors,” Hegseth said. “That thing was on fire… This is called the fog of war.”
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