By MATT BROWN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — When the Senate unanimously confirmed Gen. CQ Brown Jr. as Air Force chief of staff in 2020, President Donald Trump hailed a “historic day for America!” on social media and said he was ”Excited to work even more closely with Gen. Brown, who is a Patriot and Great Leader!”

Trump’s Feb. 21 social media post firing Brown, who had since risen to the military’s top uniformed officer, was comparatively reserved. The Republican president dismissed Brown, the second African American to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with five other Pentagon officials in a rare move that some critics fear pushes politics into an institution vaunted for its nonpartisanship and adherence to the Constitution.

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On Capitol Hill, the move drew little criticism from many Republican senators who had once hailed Brown’s service to the nation.

“My understanding is the president does have the ability to decide who he wants to be as chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Gen. Brown, I believe, has done an excellent job,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D.

“I would’ve been more than happy if the president had left him right in there. But the president has the ability and the authority to make up his own mind as to who he wants,” said Rounds, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., compared the firings to the way President Barack Obama, a Democrat, shook up military leadership as he pursued military gains in Afghanistan. He said he was still trying to understand whether Trump’s dismissals were really without precedent.

“I don’t know if I should be concerned or not, if it’s really far afield from what you normally see in transitions,” Tillis said.

Fired alongside Brown were five other top officials: Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead the Navy; Gen. James Slife, the vice chief of the Air Force; and the top judge advocate generals, who advise the military on how to legally conduct their actions, for the Army, the Navy and the Air Force.

But it was Brown’s dismissal that attracted the most attention, given that Trump campaigned heavily on removing “woke” generals from the military. Brown rose to the job after a career as one of the Air Force’s top aviators, but he drew conservative ire for speaking about his experiences as a Black man in the military after the murder of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed when a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for about 9 1/2 minutes while Floyd was handcuffed.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., lambasted Brown’s firing. She said the message from the White House to rank-and-file troops is clear: “Your expertise and service is not what’s important. What’s important is your political loyalty to Donald Trump.”

Brown was only the second African American to serve as Joint Chiefs chairman, after the late Army Gen. Colin Powell. He was confirmed for the job in 2023 with significant bipartisan support, but few Republicans came to his defense after his firing.

Many Republicans emphasized that Trump has the right, as the commander-in-chief, to dismiss Brown.

“I think the president is entitled to have his team, including on the Joint Chiefs,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo. “And I thought the president handled that well, thanked him for service and a distinguished career, but it’s probably time for change.”

Hawley did not specify why Brown had to be removed before his four-year tenure as chairman expired but said he expected Trump would provide some explanation.

Trump’s firings did draw some pushback, if muted. A bipartisan group of House members sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth calling for “clear, transparent and apolitical” criteria for the removal of top military officials.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, from right, with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. CQ Brown gives his opening statement before the start of their meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Pentagon, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

“An apolitical military is an essential component of our democracy and our national security,” wrote a group of six lawmakers that included Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., alongside moderate Democrats.

And Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Brown and the other officers fired had been doing a “good job.”

“It’s the president’s prerogative and I recognize that,” Collins said. “But I do not think based on the merits that the decision to fire them was warranted.”

Others cheered Trump’s dismissals. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., a former Navy SEAL, slammed the Pentagon’s leadership under President Joe Biden, a Democrat, saying “the folks from that era just need to go away.”

“We need a clean slate at the DOD,” Van Orden said, referring to the Department of Defense.

Hegseth, who was confirmed by the Senate as defense secretary in a dramatic tie-breaking vote despite questions about his qualifications to lead the Pentagon and allegations of heavy drinking and aggressive behavior toward women, has defended Trump’s firings.

Trump said his nominee to replace Brown will be retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine, whom Trump first met during a trip to Iraq. Caine is a career F-16 pilot who served on active duty and in the National Guard, notably flying above the nation’s capital in the hours after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

While Caine’s military service includes combat roles in Iraq, special operations postings and positions inside some of the Pentagon’s most classified special access programs, he lacks key assignments that are required by law to serve as Joint Chiefs chairman. Trump can waive those requirements — but no waiver was required when Brown was confirmed under Biden, as he had fulfilled all the criteria.

Caine’s lack of command roles is a gap but also gives him more independence than his predecessors, said retired Lt. Gen. Marc Sasseville, who is a friend and flew F-16s on Sept. 11 with Caine.

“He never asked for the job. Never politicked for it,” Sasseville said. “This is not how he is going to define himself.”

But Democratic senators say the firings are an ominous sign, given that Trump has long made clear his desire to involve the military in his domestic policy goals, including his crackdown on immigration.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a veteran and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the firings a “travesty” that “will have a ripple effect throughout the military in recruiting and retaining really qualified, able men and women, because it sends a message that political kowtowing to the president is more important than ability and skill.”

Blumenthal said Republican colleagues had expressed “deep misgivings” to him but would not air those concerns publicly.

Associated Press writer Tara Copp contributed to this report.

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is abandoning cases that sought to force police and fire departments to end what the Biden administration alleged were discriminatory hiring processes, Attorney General Pam Bondi said Wednesday in the latest move by the Trump administration to end government support for efforts to increase diversity.

A Justice Department official said the administration is walking away from four cases, including one that led to a settlement agreement resolving an investigation into discriminatory hiring practices affecting Black and female applicants to the Maryland State Police. It’s part of a broader effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to roll back initiatives and programs promoting diversity, equity and inclusion, which Republicans contend threaten merit-based hiring.

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“American communities deserve firefighters and police officers to be chosen for their skill and dedication to public safety – not to meet DEI quotas,” the attorney general said in an emailed statement.

In the Maryland case, the Biden administration announced in October that it had reached an agreement with state police to change the ways applicants are tested after the department alleged police used a written test that discriminated against Black candidates and a physical fitness test that discriminated against female applicants.

The Biden administration found the tests disqualified Black and female applicants from the hiring process at significantly disproportionate rates, concluding that the tests violated a federal statute that prohibits employment discrimination based on race, sex, color, national origin, and religion.

Bondi’s chief of staff, Chad Mizelle, said in a social media post that the Biden administration had sought to punish police and fire departments “for using race-neutral hiring tools,” even though he said there is “no evidence that the departments engaged in intentional discrimination.”

Maryland State Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday evening.

Other cases were related to fire or police departments in North Carolina, Georgia, and Indiana, Mizelle said.

Trump signed an order on his first day in office directing federal agencies to terminate all “equity-related” grants or contracts. He signed a follow-up order requiring federal contractors to certify that they don’t promote DEI.

By DAVID KLEPPER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic lawmakers are demanding answers from Elon Musk about whether staffers at his Department of Government Efficiency have shared national security secrets over insecure communication channels.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia were joined by several other Democrats on a letter Thursday that asserts that reckless actions by Musk and Republican President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting initiative present a threat to national security by exposing secrets about America’s defense and intelligence agencies.

Elon Musk speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC, at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025, in Oxon Hill, Md. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Such information would present huge advantages to U.S. adversaries by giving them critical information about Washington’s defense priorities and the resources assigned to various missions and objectives, the lawmakers said.

Without going through the normal security procedures, staffers hired by Musk have gained access to a variety of sensitive government databases that contain private information about many Americans and their businesses, along with employment and operational information used by the government.

In many cases that includes classified information, such as the precise number of employees working for various intelligence agencies.

According to the letter, DOGE staffers in recent weeks have used unauthorized servers and unknown artificial intelligence programs to analyze and store the data, and shared the information over unsecure channels, raising the risk that a foreign nation, criminal group or inside threat could gain access or misuse the material.

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The lawmakers also noted that despite assurances the DOGE website will not reveal information from intelligence agencies, material from the National Reconnaissance Office was easily found, the lawmakers said.

They expressed concerns that DOGE may be cutting spending and personnel without understanding the national security implications until it is too late. They pointed to a recent incident in which the government tried to bring back workers it had fired who worked on nuclear weapon programs.

“DOGE employees do not appear to fully understand much of the information to which they have been given unfettered access and given the cavalier and incompetent ways that they have handled this data, these individuals represent a clear threat to national security and the nation’s economy,” the lawmakers wrote.

In their letter, the Democrats demanded information about DOGE staffing and security protocols and how the data has been used, and potentially misused, since DOGE began operations earlier this year.

Musk and Trump have defended DOGE’s work, saying it’s led to billions in savings. DOGE and the White House did not immediately respond Thursday to questions seeking comment about the lawmakers’ letter.

By CATHY BUSSEWITZ, AP Business Writer

A Senate committee voted Thursday to advance the nomination of President Donald Trump’s choice to head the Department of Labor, one of the agencies named in lawsuits over moves by Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team to access federal data systems.

Members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions voted 13-9 to recommend Lori Chavez-DeRemer ‘s confirmation by the full Senate.

Although the former Republican congresswoman from Oregon is widely viewed as comparatively pro-labor, some senators have said they would oppose all of Trump’s remaining Cabinet picks as a way to protest his administration’s far-reaching efforts to reshape the U.S. government.

“The next secretary of labor, the next secretary of education, the next secretary of housing, the next secretary of the Treasury is Elon Musk. Let us understand that reality and not play along with this charade,” Vermont independent Bernie Sanders, the committee’s ranking member, said before Thursday’s vote. “Does anyone here really think that any secretary of labor, any secretary of education, is going to make decisions by himself or herself?”

Lori Chavez-DeRemer, left arrives with Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., for a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on her nomination for Secretary of Labor, Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

During her Feb. 19 confirmation hearing, Republican senators grilled Chavez-DeRemer about her past support in Congress for pro-union legislation. Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican who chairs the committee, said business owners were concerned about Chavez-DeRemer’s co-sponsorship of the Protecting the Right to Organize Act.

The PRO Act, which did not come up for a vote during her one term, would have made it easier for workers to unionize and penalized employers who interfered with that activity. When Cassidy asked if Chavez-DeRemer still supported the legislation, she declined to give a yes or no answer.

“I do not believe the secretary of labor should write the laws. It would be up to Congress to write the law,” she said. Later in the hearing, she said she supported state “right to work” laws, which allow employees to refuse to join a union in their workplace.

The response must have satisfied Republicans on the committee. “Representative Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination has the support of unions and businesses. If confirmed, she has the opportunity to bring these two groups together to secure a better future for all,” Cassidy said before the committee’s vote of approval.

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The Department of Labor has nearly 16,000 full-time employees and a proposed budget of $13.9 billion in fiscal year 2025. If confirmed, Chavez-DeRemer would preside over that budget and workforce. She would also set priorities related to wages, workplace health and safety, and employees’ rights to organize, as well as employers’ rights to fire workers.

A group of labor unions and 14 Democratic states filed separate lawsuits this month to keep Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency from accessing Labor Department data systems, which contain medical and financial records of millions of Americans, including those who have filed safety complaints about their employers.

During Chavez-DeRemer’s confirmation hearing, Democrats on the Health, Education, Labor & Pensions committee tried to find out where her allegiances would lie. They questioned whether she would continue to be an advocate for workers while serving in an administration that is slashing the scope and size of the federal workforce, including through mass layoffs.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., asked if Chavez-DeRemer would deny Musk or his representatives access to information about competitors or labor violations at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Musk’s companies are the subject of several OSHA investigations.

She said the decision belonged to Trump. “I work for the president of the United States, if confirmed, and I will serve at the pleasure of the president on this issue,” she said.