Pentagon pulling Gen. Milley’s security detail and clearance ‘immediately,’ may face demotion in retirement

EXCLUSIVE: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will announce he is “immediately pulling” retired Gen. Mark Milley’s personal security detail and security clearance, multiple senior administration officials tell Fox News. 

The secretary is also directing the new acting Inspector General to conduct a review board to determine if enough evidence exists for Gen. Milley to be stripped of a star in retirement based on his actions to “undermine the chain of command” during President Donald Trump’s first term, officials say. 

The Pentagon will also be removing a second portrait of Gen. Milley inside the Pentagon. This one is from the Army’s Marshall Corridor on the third floor honoring his service as chief-of-staff of the Army. Fox is told the removal of this second portrait will take place as soon as tonight. This means there will be no more portraits of Gen. Milley inside the Pentagon. 

The first portrait of Gen. Milley, from his time as the U.S. military’s top officer, was removed from the Pentagon last week on Inauguration Day less than two hours after President Trump was sworn into office. 

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The now retired Gen. Milley and other former senior Trump aides had been assigned personal security details ever since Iran vowed revenge for the killing of Qasem Soleimani in a drone strike in 2020 ordered by Trump in his first term.

FILE – Retired Army Gen. Mark Milley served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (AP/Jeremias Gonzalez)

On “Fox News Sunday,” the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Tom Cotton said he hoped President Trump would “revisit” the decision to pull the protective security details from John Bolton, Mike Pompeo and Brian Hook who previously served under Trump.

Asked why these actions were being taken, a senior administration official who requested anonymity replied, “There is a new era of accountability in the Defense Department under President Trump’s leadership—and that’s exactly what the American people expect.”

Gen. Milley served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2019 to 2023 under both Presidents Trump and Biden.

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FILE – Milley served under President Joe Biden and Trump. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

He served as the Army’s chief of staff, the service’s top officer, from 2015-2019. 

In his new book “War,” Bob Woodward writes Gen. Milley told him at a reception at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C. on March 6, 2023, that he believed Trump was “fascist to the core!”

Gen. Milley was still serving in uniform as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when he reportedly made the remark.

FILE – Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Army Gen. Mark Milley met with President Donald Trump and other senior military leaders at the White House in Washington, Oct. 7, 2019.  (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

FILE – A portrait of former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired U.S. Army General Mark A. Milley, was unveiled at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, Jan. 10, 2025.  (DoD/U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jack Sanders/Handout via REUTERS)

Woodward wrote that Gen. Milley, “shared with me his worries about Trump’s mental stability and control of nuclear weapons,” in a previous book.

When the leader of ISIS was killed in a daring raid carried out by U.S. Special Operations Forces in Syria in October 2019, President Trump praised Milley. 

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“I want to thank General Mark Milley and our Joint Chiefs of Staff, and I also want to thank our professionals who work in other agencies of the United States government and were critical to the mission’s unbelievable success.”

Before leaving office, President Joe Biden pardoned Gen. Milley. 

In their book, “Peril,” Bob Woodward and Robert Costa wrote that Gen. Milley called his Chinese counterpart on two occasions in the final months of Trump’s first term, warning him the U.S. military had no plans to strike China in a bid to avert tensions between nuclear-armed countries.