When President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth relieved Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the Chief of Naval Operations, and the Vice Chief of Staff for the Air Force, they also removed the top Judge Advocates General from each military department—a perplexing move that left many wondering why.
The removals of Lt. Gen. Charles L. Plummer, who had been the Air Force’s top military lawyer since 2022, and Army Lt. Gen. Joseph B. Berger III came just weeks after the Navy’s top JAG, Vice Adm. Christopher French, had retired. Now all three top JAG positions are vacant. Hegseth has said he intends to “open up” the process to find replacements.
“Ultimately, we want lawyers who give sound constitutional advice and don’t exist to attempt to be roadblocks to anything—anything that happens in their spots,” Hegseth told Fox News on Feb. 23. A day later, he told pool reporters at the Pentagon, “it’s not about roadblocks to an agenda, it’s roadblocks to orders that are given by a commander-in-chief.”
Lawyers have always had a role in advising air commanders about what they can and cannot do in the battlespace since at least World War II. But that role has increased as decision-making has become more centralized over time. The implication of Hegseth’s decision is that lawyers had become too powerful in determining when and how targets could be engaged.
Ultimately, Hegseth said, “I want the best possible lawyers in each service to provide the best possible recommendations, no matter what, to lawful orders that are given. And we didn’t think those particular positions were well suited, and so we’re looking for the best.”
Retired Lt. Gen. Richard C. Harding, who served as TJAG of the Air Force from 2010 to 2014, told Air & Space Forces Magazine that with the removal of all three services’ TJAGs at once without any reasonable explanation, “one is led to believe that those JAGs were in the way of what Secretary Hegseth and others want to accomplish.”
Retired Maj. Gen. Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., who proceeded Harding’s tenure and was deputy TJAG of the Air Force from 2006 to 2010, wrote on his Lawfire blog that the Trump administration “has the right to develop and implement policies it prefers, and to have leaders who will carry them out … so long, of course, as the policies are legal.”
Likewise, retired Maj. Gen. Thomas E. Ayres—former General Counsel of the Air Force and deputy TJAG of the Army—wrote on social media that Hegseth “can certainly ask for new nominations and seek the new nominations’ confirmation by the Senate.”
But the moves continue to fuel debate. Ayers said the firings “show the importance of the position,” while retired Maj. Gen. Steven J. Lepper—Harding’s former deputy—said Hegseth’s comments about “roadblocks” infers “that legal oversight is expendable.”
What JAGs Do
The Air Force employs about 1,300 Active-Duty judge advocates, whose responsibilities include advising commanders on their legal responsibilities as leaders and warfighters. The service’s top legal officer provides independent legal counsel to senior military leaders.
Several former JAGs interviewed for this article referred to their numbers as “force multipliers,” not impediments. “JAGs hold a respected position on the battlefield because they enhance the military’s ability to conduct warfare within legal bounds,” Lepper said. Harding said JAGs help minimize civilian harm, limit collateral damage, and treat prisoners humanely.
A point of contention is the role JAGs play in targeting decisions and the rules of engagement. Researcher Craig Jones wrote in 2021 for West Point’s Lieber Institute that JAGs have become increasingly important. “Once bit-players in the background of military operations, legal advisers today speak of their ‘intimate’ and ‘extensive’ involvement in targeting operations; one recently told me that he provided legal input on well over 1,000 targeting operations in Afghanistan alone.”
That deep involvement is sometimes controversial. Former Army Maj. David French, himself a JAG, has argued JAGs’ recommendations sometimes become too restrictive.
“While JAG officers’ concern with the terrible consequences of poor decision-making under pressure is well meaning and understandable, the current rules have effectively taken combat decision-making away from experienced warriors and put it in the hands of far less experienced lawyers,” he wrote in 2015.
Former Army TJAG Lt. Gen. Charles Pede also warned in 2021 that “today’s senior commander and lawyer have been raised on a constant diet of constraining [counterterrorism] rules of engagement for nearly 20 years,” creating a gap between the law of war and more restrictive policy.
Already, the Trump administration has granted military commanders more leeway to conduct airstrikes without getting sign-off from the White House and Pentagon. Those commanders, however, will still likely consult with their JAGs, and former JAGs said their job is to provide advice based on the law, not impose their own rules.
“To be crystal clear, JAGs advise on [rules of engagement], but it is the product of civilian and military leaders’ decisions,” Dunlap wrote. “It is the SecDef and ultimately the President who bear the responsibility for [rules of engagement].”
Ultimately, if the law restricts certain actions, then the lawyer has to speak up. “It’s not a roadblock—it’s legal compliance,” Harding said.
JAGs also advise on international law, such as the deportation flights the Air Force began flying in February to countries like Ecuador and Guatemala using its C-17s. JAGs ensure commands are operating appropriately within legal bounds.
Retired Col. Don Christensen, former chief prosecutor for the Air Force, told Air & Space Forces Magazine that a JAG’s role is to find legal ways to support commanders’ objectives without violating the law.
French, a decade after critiquing restrictive rules of engagement, also noted in a recent column that “dismissing JAG officers doesn’t change the rules, but it can degrade the quality of the legal advice that commanders receive.”
Advising commanders is “already difficult,” Lipper said, especially in combat where pressure is immense. He worries that commanders might choose not to heed legal advice out of concern that they could repercussions for doing so. “What’s happening now is creating a disincentive for commanders to continue listening to JAGs,” Lepper asserted.
Two Stars
While speaking about the TJAG firings on Fox News, Hegseth also stated that moving forward, the positions would be downgraded from three-star positions to two-star billets. He explained the move as an effort to curb to “the inflation of military generals,” a nod to the increasing proportion of general and flag officers compared to the total force.
Harding objected, suggesting the downgrade could “marginalize the value of TJAGs and their advice.”
The TJAG position, long a two-star billet, was elevated to the three-star level in 2006 following a series of scandals over how detainees were treated during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a former Air Force JAG, drove the change. JAGs had warned against practices that were later deemed torture and in violation of both U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions, and Graham and others argued for elevating the positions because TJAGs legal advice wasn’t reaching the highest levels of government.
Congress amended the statute in 2016, making the third star optional, but until now, each service has continued to fill the roles with three-star officers.
Reducing TJAGs in rank is more than symbolic, Harding said: “By moving them back to two stars, they will be excluded from key meetings where their input is crucial.”
Theoretically, Harding said, the current statute would allow leaders to appoint a TJAG who is neither a three-star nor a two-star general, though that seems unlikely.
Dunlap said, in an email response to questions, that downgrading the TJAGs’ ranks “sends a disastrous message that the importance of adherence to the law is being similarly downgraded.”
To date, the administration has not followed up with details on either its selection process or plans for the positions, which are currently filled by “Acting” TJAGs. Maj. Gen. Rebecca R. Vernon is the current Air Force Acting TJAG. Once a new nominee is named, the Senate must confirm the nomination, typically with a public hearing, a committee vote, and ultimately a vote by the full Senate.
By saying he intends to “open up” the selections, Hegseth suggested the JAG community is essentially closed, and that TJAGs in the past were “chosen by each other.” But Harding disputed the point.
“TJAGs are selected by a promotion board, and like every other general officer, the majority—more than 90 percent—of the board members are not JAGs,” said Harding. “In fact, it’s typical to have only one judge advocate on the board, with the rest being officers who have command experience, three stars or higher. They review annual performance reports, and there are extremely strict rules around reviewing the candidate’s records.”
Indeed, noted Christensen, there are very few JAGs on the promotion board “to hedge against exactly what Hegseth says is happening.”
