国防部长劳埃德·奥斯汀(Lloyd Austin)周二下令五角大楼42个文职咨询委员会的数百名成员辞职，有效地清除了特朗普政府最后几天被提名到委员会的一些特朗普忠实者。
这些辞职是奥斯汀下令进行的更广泛审查的一部分，该审查旨在考察董事会的可行性，并消除潜在的重叠。
但五角大楼的高级发言人承认，辞职和审查是由特朗普的忠实者在最后一刻被任命为董事会成员引起的，包括特朗普的前竞选经理。
五角大楼新闻秘书约翰·柯比说:“部长对部门顾问委员会成员最近变化的速度和程度深感关切。”。“这次审查将使他能够迅速了解这些委员会的目的，并确保咨询委员会事实上正在向部门领导提供最好的建议。”
在42个民间董事会任职的数百人将不得不在2月16日前辞职，因为他们的业务被暂停，以便审查可以开始。
一名高级国防官员表示，奥斯汀认为，他下令的辞职是“整个部门最公平、公正和一致的做法。”
在特朗普政府的最后两个月，代理国防部长克里斯·米勒解雇了国防政策委员会的著名政治家，包括前国务卿亨利·基辛格和前国务卿马德琳·奥尔布赖特。
米勒提名安东尼·塔塔(Anthony Tata)接替基辛格和奥尔布赖特担任该委员会成员，他是备受争议的负责政策的代理国防部长。
塔塔对这一职位的提名被他之前的仇视伊斯兰言论所破坏，他称巴拉克·奥巴马总统为恐怖分子。
米勒还任命了特朗普2016年总统竞选经理科里·莱万多夫斯基(Corey Lewandowski)和特朗普竞选副经理大卫·博西(David Bossie)为国防商业委员会成员。
米勒任命的性质导致人们立即猜测拜登政府是否会允许他们继续下去。
上周，五角大楼证实，对莱万多夫斯基和博西的任命已被搁置，等待审查。
辞职将只适用于国防部长或其他五角大楼官员提名的委员会成员，不会影响总统或国会提名的委员会成员。
这意味着，即将到来的审查和辞职不会影响特朗普的前白宫发言人肖恩·斯派塞(Sean Spicer)，他于2019年被任命为美国海军学院游客委员会成员，也不会影响凯莱恩·康威(Kellyanne Conway)，他被任命为美国空军学院游客委员会成员。
赞助每个委员会的五角大楼组织将在4月30日前提交关于每个委员会与国防战略可行性的建议，五角大楼高级官员的最终建议将于6月1日提交给奥斯汀。
在40多个咨询委员会中，将在审查期间暂停活动的有阿灵顿国家公墓咨询委员会、武装部队调查、起诉和性侵犯辩护辩护咨询委员会以及军队中妇女辩护咨询委员会。
Pentagon purges advisory boards of Trump loyalists
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday ordered the resignation of the hundreds of people that serve on the Pentagon’s 42 civilian advisory boards, effectively purging a number of Trump loyalists named to the boards in the Trump administration's final days.
The resignations are part of a broader review Austin has ordered to look at the viability of the boards and to eliminate potential overlaps.
But the Pentagon's top spokesman acknowledged that the resignations and the review had been prompted by the last-minute appointments of Trump loyalists to the boards, including Trump's former campaign manager.
"The Secretary was deeply concerned with the pace and the extent of recent changes to memberships of department advisory committees," said John Kirby, the Pentagon's press secretary. "This review will allow him now to quickly get his arms around the purpose of these boards and to make sure the advisory committees are in fact providing the best possible advice to department leadership."
The hundreds of individuals serving on 42 civilian boards will have to resign by Feb. 16, as their operations are suspended so that the review can begin.
A senior defense official said that Austin believes that the resignations he ordered were "the most equitable, fair, and uniformly consistent way to do it across the department."
In the last two months of the Trump administration, acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller dismissed prominent statesmen who had served on the Defense Policy Board including former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Among the people that Miller named to replace Kissinger and Albright on that board was Anthony Tata, the controversial acting under secretary of defense for policy.
Tata's nomination to that position had been scuttled by his previous Islamophobic comments calling President Barack Obama a terrorist.
Miller had also appointed Corey Lewandowski, Trump's 2016 presidential campaign manager, and David Bossie, a Trump deputy campaign manager, to the Defense Business Board.
The nature of Miller's appointments had led to immediate speculation as to whether the Biden administration would allow them to proceed.
Last week, the Pentagon confirmed that it had put the appointments for Lewandowski and Bossie had been placed on hold pending a review.
The resignations will apply only to individuals nominated to boards by the Defense Secretary or other Pentagon officials and will not affect people named to boards by a president or Congress.
That means that the upcoming review and resignations will not impact Sean Spicer, Trump's former White House spokesman, who was named in 2019 to the U.S. Naval Academy's Board of Visitors, nor Kellyanne Conway, who was named to serve on the U.S. Air Force Academy's Board of Visitors.
The Pentagon organizations that sponsor each board will have until April 30 to submit recommendations for the viability of each board with the National Defense Strategy, a final recommendation by top Pentagon officials will be submitted to Austin on June 1.
Among the more than 40 advisory boards and committees that will suspend their activities during the review are the Advisory Committee on Arlington National Cemetery, the Defense Advisory Committee on Investigation, Prosecution, and Defense of Sexual Assault in the Armed Forces, and the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services.
