A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times – An Instant New York Times Bestseller: A Pentagon Insider's Tumultuous Years Under President Trump

by Mark T. Esper

The same was true if the reaction by some was to reject nominees because they thought we were playing politics. We were concerned about this because two of the selectees were women: Army lieutenant general Laura Richardson to be the next head of Southern Command and Air Force general Jacqueline Van Ovost to be the future leader of Transportation Command. Both were highly qualified officers—and the best picks for the job. This was not about their gender, but I was concerned that some in the White House would allege that these were “woke” nominations, and act against them. The president removed me from office before the six promotion packets I approved were acted upon. I learned that somehow Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the new acting undersecretary for intelligence, got his hands on the packets and allegedly tried to scrub them all for “anti-Trump” bias. How someone outside the chain of command and not part of the normal process gained control of these promotion packets was troubling. The Joint Staff was able to get them back, however, but Cohen-Watnick apparently had already found a replacement for one of the officers I selected. This would have been terrible. Milley reportedly went to Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller and had this undone.