Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll, right, and Gen. Christopher LaNeve, vice chief of the Army and acting Army chief of staff, testify at a House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense budget hearing on Thursday, April 16, 2026, in Washington. (Eric Kayne/Stars and Stripes)
House appropriators from both sides of the aisle expressed concerns and, at times, anger about the sudden removal this month of the Army’s chief of staff, Gen. Randy George during a hearing Thursday to examine the service’s 2027 budget request.
“I’m a huge fan of the last chief of staff of the Army; I think Gen. George is a great patriot,” said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. “He’s an outstanding general officer, outstanding chief of staff, and I just want the record to reflect how much we regret, I personally regret, that he’s no longer in active service. He’s a real loss to us, in my opinion.”
George, a 1988 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., had served as the Army’s top officer since September 2023. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on April 2 abruptly asked George to retire from the job that top generals traditionally have held for about four years. Hegseth has fired several generals and admirals, including at least three members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, since taking the Pentagon’s reins in January 2025.
Pentagon officials have provided no explanation for Hegseth’s decision to remove George. The Army’s vice chief, Gen. Christopher LaNeve, who previously served as Hegseth’s top military adviser, was named acting chief of staff in the days after George’s ouster. LaNeve, who testified before the House Appropriations Committee’s defense subpanel alongside Army Secretary Dan Driscoll on Thursday, is seen as George’s likeliest successor.
Republicans and Democrats — including the defense subpanel’s chairman Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., and the committee’s top Democrat, Rose DeLauro, of Connecticut — said they agreed with Cole’s comments on George.
One Democrat went further, expressing anger about George’s removal. Rep. Ed Case, of Hawaii, said he was angered by the firing of the former Army chief, in whom he had “very high confidence.”
George’s ouster, Case said, was “humiliatingly and cruelly” done “without any offer, apparently, of a graceful exit.”
“You at least owe Congress, the public, and I think most importantly, the soldiers, some explanation, which you did not do, and you consciously chose not to do,” Case told Driscoll. “And in doing so, you created and compounded numerous issues, including morale, uncertainty and distrust. And I do not believe that that is acceptable or should be acceptable.”
Driscoll denied knowledge of Hegseth’s plans of decision to remove George, to whom Driscoll had grown close in the past year. The hearing Thursday came amid reports — including from the Washington Post and New York Times — in recent weeks of tension between Driscoll and Hegseth.
While the Army secretary did not address those reports, he said he was on vacation in North Carolina with his family when George was asked to resign.
“When we drove back from North Carolina, I drove straight to Gen. George’s house,” Driscoll told Case. “We walked right in, and we all gave him a hug. There is no person that has more respect for Gen. George. … I, too, love Gen. George.”
Lawmakers said they were also concerned about other issues around the budget. Among them the impact of munitions expenditures during Operation Epic Fury in Iran and the lack of a detailed fiscal year 2027 budget request from the service so late into April.
Driscoll and LaNeve did not provide clarity on the Army’s munitions stockpiles, but they said the service has played a large role in the conflict with artillery and defensive munitions.
President Donald Trump’s administration released a so-called “skinny budget” proposal on April 3, which outlined the White House’s intention of spending some $1.5 trillion on defense in fiscal 2027. The administration has not made public yet full details of that budget proposal, including precisely how much money the Army has requested for next year.
Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., the subpanel’s top Democrat, said she was concerned the lack of detail would slow Congress’ already difficult annual efforts to pass a budget. Congress has rarely passed budgets ahead of the Oct. 1 start of the fiscal year. This year lawmakers failed to pass a Pentagon budget until February. The Defense Department — along with the other federal agencies — was partially shut down for 43 days from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12 due to a lack of a budget deal.
Budget details are especially important this year as the Pentagon looks to increase its spending by some 40% next year, which McCollum called “shocking.”
“We need information,” she said. “This administration still has not provided us the justification documents for the full request. We need the details when the budget is made public, and that is the only way we can do our job properly to do the oversight we are tasked with.”
Cole said the dearth of information rests with the Office of Management and Budget and not with Driscoll or other Army officials. However, the House’s top appropriator added, the slow budget rollout meant the Pentagon was likely headed for another prolonged period operating without a current budget in fiscal 2027.
“Frankly, for the committee to have the information that it needs to make decisions, it’s taking us a while,” Cole said. “Certainly, we want to work with the administration, and certainly with the president on what he’s trying to achieve, but we’re going to need more information to be able to do that. … My friend from Minnesota is exactly right when she raises that issue; I think she speaks for the whole committee.”
