2026-06-09T08:00:08.272Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/09/politics/hegseth-pentagon-suspicion
- 消息人士称，国防部长皮特·赫格斯治的保密作风和对忠诚度的猜忌阻碍了军事规划，并在五角大楼内部引发了普遍的不信任。
- 赫格斯治已解雇了二十多名高级军官，并与多名文职军种部长发生冲突。
- 消息人士描述了一种恐惧文化，官员们竭力避免引起赫格斯治办公室的注意。
AI生成摘要经CNN编辑审核。
那是四月初，陆军参谋长兰迪·乔治将军认为，是时候与他的上司——国防部长皮特·赫格斯治进行一次面对面会谈了。
此前，五角大楼这位部长直接干预陆军将官的职业发展，包括赫格斯治否决了四名上校晋升为准将的事件，这让乔治迫切希望与赫格斯治沟通。
数月来，赫格斯治似乎对陆军及其领导层，包括乔治本人，越来越不满。陆军参谋长身边的消息人士告诉CNN，这让他们感到困惑，因为乔治在任期间与赫格斯治的互动有限，而且在赫格斯治干预晋升事宜之前，双方几乎没有任何沟通。
据消息人士透露，这种情况符合赫格斯治办公室严格控制信息流通的模式，很少有外部人员能了解他对五角大楼的规划。赫格斯治对身边许多人都深感不信任——一些部队成员必须签署保密协议才能了解行动内容，测谎测试也已司空见惯。
乔治希望缓和与赫格斯治之间的紧张关系。因此，在4月1日，他请求进行面对面会谈，讨论国防部长的多项优先事项——技术与装备改进——以及陆军如何努力落实这些目标，一名五角大楼、美国政府和国防官员告诉CNN。
但他始终未能举行这场会谈。次日，他就被解雇了。
这篇报道基于对15名现任和前任五角大楼官员以及其他熟悉赫格斯治治下国防部内部运作人士的采访。
多名消息人士称，赫格斯治上任伊始就对身边的文职和军事官员充满不信任，并怀疑他们的忠诚度。
赫格斯治已解雇了二十多名高级军官，赶走了与他发生冲突的一名海军部长，据报道还直接干预各军种的晋升事宜，左右领导层构成。
虽然乔治被解雇的时机突兀且出人意料——当时陆军部长丹·德里斯科尔不在城内，这也让陆军高级领导层措手不及——但这次解雇本身并不意外。这是赫格斯治与陆军高级幕僚，尤其是与乔治之间数月紧张关系的 culmination。
赫格斯治和其他亲密的特朗普盟友从一开始就对乔治持怀疑态度，部分原因是乔治在拜登政府时期曾担任前国防部长劳埃德·奥斯汀的助手。这项不带政治倾向的军事职务只是他漫长职业生涯中的众多岗位之一，其中包括在伊拉克和阿富汗战争中指挥部队，这让乔治得以与议员们建立广泛的联系。
解雇高管和限制信息流通是赫格斯治任期的核心特征，但消息人士告诉CNN，这种情况并不局限于部长办公室。这种文化已经渗透到五角大楼的其他部门，在一些高级文职官员中引发了内斗。
“我们每天做的每一件事，都在盘算，‘这是会让老板保住职位，还是会让他自己被炒？’”一名五角大楼官员告诉CNN。“我们做出的每一个决定，都把这作为一个规划因素……如此重地考量这种因素，是非常反常的。”
五角大楼发言人肖恩·帕内尔在给CNN的一份声明中表示：“CNN援引的匿名消息人士都是别有用心的局外人，他们有着明确的政治议程，意图通过党派攻击文章诋毁国防部，破坏赫格斯治部长的领导地位。”
“每个成功的组织都会经历领导层更迭，我们感谢那些离任者为国家做出的服务，”他补充道。“我们采取了果断措施，使军事领导层与总统、部长和我们的作战人员的优先事项保持一致。”
多名官员表示，在五角大楼内部已是公开的秘密：能否保住职位，往往取决于尽可能低调行事，避免引起赫格斯治及其办公室的注意。
“有时候领导人在掌权时必须采取大胆行动，有时必须挺身而出，而陆军一直在努力提拔愿意这么做的领导者，”这位国防官员说。“如果说有什么不同的话，这次解雇彻底打消了这种想法。”
据这名五角大楼官员透露，乔治当时正与陆军参谋部的高级主管们开会，突然被打断，被告知赫格斯治正在找他。
他走出会议室，赫格斯治向他宣布了这一消息——据这位国防官员透露，通话简短直接，几乎没有解释。就在赫格斯治宣布消息几分钟后，CBS新闻的詹妮弗·雅各布斯公开报道了这次免职。
大约30分钟后，乔治重新召集了他的幕僚。“大家都看到了那条推文，”这名五角大楼官员说。“场面很尴尬，每个人都看着他，不知道他会说什么。”
这名官员说，乔治平静地宣布了这个消息：没有情绪，没有多余的话。他的态度似乎近乎轻松，仿佛试图让场面不那么难堪。
“工作人员一个接一个地上前，要么和他握手，要么拥抱他，”这名官员回忆道。“气氛凝重——仿佛有人去世了。”
到第二天早上，乔治的办公室已经被清空。
五角大楼的人员变动已经引起了议员们的关注，而乔治被免职尤其引发了两党议员的公开担忧，他们称赞乔治是正直的军官，并对他被解雇表示失望。
“没有人比对兰迪·乔治将军及其42年的服役生涯、他的紫心勋章、他的妻子帕蒂、他们的孙辈和子女更尊重的了。我敬爱他们，”德里斯科尔在乔治被解雇后的上个月众议院拨款委员会国防小组委员会听证会上说道。
与此同时，赫格斯治拒绝向议员们透露他解雇乔治的确切原因，但他表示，“要改变一个被错误观点摧毁的部门的文化，很难依靠曾经在那里的军官们。”
这名五角大楼官员表示，赫格斯治的这番话再次证实，乔治被解雇是“赫格斯治想要作为其政治遗产的这场难以界定的文化战争的一部分”。
但对五角大楼决策影响最大的，还是保密和猜忌。
多名消息人士称，在赫格斯治任期的大部分时间里都是如此，在对伊朗战争爆发前，赫格斯治让关键军事规划人员置身事外，这意味着联合参谋部——负责规划和向总统及国防部长提供建议的军事神经中枢——的一些成员几乎无法了解特朗普政府的战略考量。
这给军事规划人员带来了挑战，他们被突然要求负责调动美国资产到该地区的后勤工作，包括正在委内瑞拉沿海作业的“杰拉尔德·R·福特”号航母打击群。
消息人士称，这种由赫格斯治和政府政治领导层鼓励的临时决策方式，也继续给美军指挥官带来挑战。
“一年多过去了，五角大楼内部仍缺乏明确的内部流程……这是由大规模的偏执造成的，”这名五角大楼官员在谈及赫格斯治的任期时说。“每件事都要单独处理，因为没有授权，也没有信任。如果没有授权和信任，就无法做出政策决定。”
战争开始以来，赫格斯治及其团队主要致力于将这场冲突描绘成一场压倒性的胜利，包括在新闻发布会上，他批评新闻媒体的报道“极其不爱国”。
另一名消息人士称，赫格斯治还优先为白宫制作“战争视频”，为特朗普发动这场冲突的决定辩护，这与国土安全部的做法如出一辙——该部门大力推送移民执法视频，以塑造高效成功的形象。
但随着伊朗封锁霍尔木兹海峡的经济影响日益显现，以及特朗普对与赫格斯治有关伊朗剩余军事能力的言论相矛盾的报道越来越不满，这位国防部长再次将注意力转向调查泄密事件。
一名消息人士称，受赫格斯治的启发，美国中央司令部多次就泄密问题询问部署的服役人员，并试图使用通常仅用于保密事项的权力，威慑部队分享任何信息，哪怕是未分类的信息。
“他们把我们当成敌人，”这名消息人士说。
赫格斯治与军种部长之间的紧张关系
赫格斯治任期内最突出的内斗案例之一，是与德里斯科尔的矛盾，这往往源于德里斯科尔与副总统J·D·万斯的密切关系。CNN此前曾报道，赫格斯治认为德里斯科尔与白宫的关系是在绕过他，这种不安全感在去年的一次此前已被报道的分歧中爆发，当时德里斯科尔试图邀请万斯和特朗普到访五角大楼。
德里斯科尔和万斯是耶鲁法学院的同学，至今仍是亲密好友。这位年轻的陆军部长还与总统建立了自己的关系，这一点在特朗普任命他协助说服乌克兰回到与俄罗斯的谈判桌前时可见一斑。
尽管如此，这名五角大楼官员表示，德里斯科尔和赫格斯治“从一开始”就注定关系不和。
“他从骨子里就不信任陆军，”这名官员说。
就在赫格斯治罢免乔治的几个月前，他解除了广受尊敬的陆军副参谋长詹姆斯·明格斯将军的职务，并用自己的高级军事助手克里斯·拉涅夫将军取而代之。消息人士称，任命拉涅夫担任副参谋长的目的很明确，就是让他最终取代乔治——这一理论在乔治被解雇后成为现实，拉涅夫随后接任代理参谋长一职。
就在乔治被迫退休几周后，五角大楼内部的官员们对海军部长约翰·费兰也被突然解雇感到震惊。CNN报道称，当五角大楼发言人在X平台上发文称费兰将“即刻”离职时，费兰仍在试图向白宫确认他的解雇是否合法。
一些国防部官员私下表示，费兰在德里斯科尔之前被解雇令人意外。
但多名消息人士告诉CNN，过去几个月来，费兰与赫格斯治的关系同样恶化，原因有很多：从赫格斯治对费兰在落实政府优先事项方面行动不够迅速感到不满，到怀疑费兰与特朗普关系过密。
一名熟悉费兰解雇相关讨论的消息人士告诉CNN，解雇原因是其工作方式存在越来越多的“缺陷”——主要是他在造船等关键工作上推进太慢，以及他阻碍了海军和海军陆战队高级军官与赫格斯治办公室之间的直接沟通。
同一名消息人士透露，现为代理海军部长的海军退伍军人洪·曹，此前作为海军副部长就被排除在决策之外。曹在两人加入特朗普政府之前就认识赫格斯治。
在被解雇近一天后，特朗普称赞费兰是“长期朋友、非常成功的商人，工作表现出色”。
特朗普同样继续称赞赫格斯治，尽管五角大楼内外的消息人士去年一年都在猜测总统很快就会更换国防部长。
消息人士告诉CNN，在公开场合，赫格斯治经常直接对着镜头讲话，以此向特朗普表达总统喜欢的那种态度。到目前为止，尽管河对岸（指白宫与五角大楼之间的波托马克河）的紧张局势不断升级，总统仍不愿与他的国防部长决裂。
“战争部长皮特·赫格斯治，就是标准的典型，”特朗普在最近一次内阁听证会上说道，当时赫格斯治就坐在他左边。“他热爱战争。”
Inside Hegseth’s Pentagon, where distrust and suspicions of loyalty are rampant
2026-06-09T08:00:08.272Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/09/politics/hegseth-pentagon-suspicion
- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s secrecy and suspicion of loyalties has hampered military planning and created widespread distrust at the Pentagon, sources said.
- Hegseth has fired more than two dozen senior military officers and clashed with multiple civilian service chiefs.
- Sources described a culture of fear where officials attempt to avoid drawing the attention of Hegseth’s office.
AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.
It was the beginning of April and the Army chief of staff, Gen. Randy George, had decided it was time for an in-person meeting with his boss, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
George was keen to speak with Hegseth after several issues in which the Pentagon chief directly influenced Army general officers’ careers, including an incident when Hegseth reached down and blocked four colonels from being promoted to one-star general officers.
For months, Hegseth seemed increasingly dissatisfied with the Army and its leadership, including George. It mystified those around the Army chief, sources told CNN, given the limited interaction George had with Hegseth during his tenure, and there was little to no communication before Hegseth intervened in the promotions.
That fit a pattern in which information was held tightly in Hegseth’s office and few outside its confines were read in on his plans for the Pentagon, according to the sources. Hegseth was deeply distrustful of many around him — some troops had to sign nondisclosure agreements to learn about operations, and polygraph tests had become commonplace.
George wanted to ease some of the tension with Hegseth. So on April 1, he requested the in-person meeting to discuss a slew of the defense secretary’s priorities — technology and improving equipment — and how the Army was working to meet them, a Pentagon, US and defense official told CNN.
He never had the meeting. The next day, he was fired.
This story is based on interviews with 15 current and former Pentagon officials and others familiar with the inner workings of the department under Hegseth.
Nearly from the beginning of his tenure, multiple sources said, Hegseth has been distrustful of officials around him — civilian and military alike — and suspicious about their loyalties.
Hegseth has fired more than two dozen senior officers, pushed out a Navy secretary he clashed with, and reportedly intervened in promotions across the military branches directly shaping leadership.
While the timing of George’s firing was abrupt and unexpected, occurring while Army Secretary Dan Driscoll was out of town and catching senior Army leaders off guard, the firing itself was not. It was the culmination of months of tension between Hegseth and senior Army staff, and George in particular.
Hegseth and other close Trump allies had been skeptical about George from the beginning, partially because George served as an aide to former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin during the Biden years. The apolitical military assignment was one of several posts in a long career, which included commanding troops during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, that put George in a position to develop extensive relationships with lawmakers.
The firings and restricted access have been a cornerstone of Hegseth’s tenure, though sources told CNN it is not limited to the secretary’s office. The culture has permeated other offices in the Pentagon, creating a culture of infighting among some senior civilian leaders.
“Everything we did on a daily basis, we were calculating, ‘Is this going to keep the boss employed, or is this going to get him fired?’” a Pentagon official told CNN. “Every single day, every decision that we made, that was a planning factor. … It’s very unusual for that to be considered so heavily.”
Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement to CNN, “The anonymous sources cited by CNN are outsiders with a clear political agenda to smear the Department and undermine Secretary Hegseth’s leadership through partisan hit pieces.”
“Every successful organization goes through leadership changes, and we thank those who have departed for their service to the country,” he added. “Decisive steps were taken to align military leadership with the priorities of the President, the Secretary, and our warfighters.”
It’s an open secret throughout the Pentagon that survivability often depends on making as little noise as possible and avoiding drawing the attention of Hegseth and his office, multiple officials said.
“Sometimes leaders have to do bold things when they’re in charge, sometimes they have to put their neck out there, and the Army has been trying to promote leaders who are willing to do that,” the defense official said. “And if anything, this has put ice on that idea.”
George was in the middle of a meeting with his senior directors on the Army staff when he was interrupted and told that Hegseth was trying to get ahold of him, the Pentagon official said.
He stepped out and Hegseth delivered the news — a curt, direct call, according to the defense official, with little explanation. Just moments after Hegseth delivered the news, CBS News’ Jennifer Jacobs reported the ouster publicly.
Roughly 30 minutes later, George reconvened his staff. “People had seen the tweet,” the Pentagon official said. “It was awkward because everybody’s looking at him, like what is he going to say?”
George delivered the news matter-of-factly, the Pentagon official said: No emotions, no color. His attitude seemed nearly lighthearted, as if trying to make it less uncomfortable.
“The staff proceeded to, one by one, either go and give him a handshake or a hug,” the official recalled. “It was solemn — as if someone had died.”
By the next morning, George’s office had been emptied.
The turnover at the Pentagon has drawn attention from lawmakers, but George’s ouster in particular has drawn public concern from both sides of the aisle, with lawmakers praising him as an upstanding officer and voicing disappointment with his firing.
“There is no person that has more respect for Gen. (Randy) George and his 42 years of service, his Purple Heart, his wife Patty, their grandkids, their kids. I adore them,” Driscoll said during a House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing last month after George’s ouster.
Hegseth, meanwhile, declined to tell lawmakers exactly why he’d fired George, but said it’s “very difficult to change the culture of a department that has been destroyed by the wrong perspectives with the same officers that were there.”
Hegseth’s comments reaffirm that George’s firing is “part of this undefinable culture war that Hegseth wants as his legacy,” the Pentagon official said.
But it’s the secrecy and suspicion that is having the biggest impact on Pentagon decision-making.
As has been the case during much of his tenure, Hegseth kept key military planners at arm’s length in the lead-up to the war with Iran, meaning some members of the joint staff — the military’s nerve center for planning and advising the president and secretary of defense — had little visibility into the Trump administration’s strategic thinking, multiple sources said.
That presented challenges for military planners who were abruptly tasked with handling the logistics of moving US assets into the region, including the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group, which was operating off the coast of Venezuela.
It is also the kind of ad hoc decision-making encouraged by Hegseth and the administration’s political leadership that has continued to present challenges for US commanders, sources said.
“A year-plus later, there is a lack of clear internal processes within the Pentagon … caused by mass paranoia,” the Pentagon official said of Hegseth’s tenure. “Everything is a case-by-case basis because there’s no delegation, there’s no trust. And if there’s no delegation or trust, policy decisions can’t be made.”
Since the war’s start, Hegseth and his team have been primarily focused on painting the conflict as an overwhelming success, including in press briefings, where he’s criticized news outlets for coverage he describes as “incredibly unpatriotic.”
Hegseth has also prioritized the production of “war videos” for the White House as it defends Trump’s decision to launch the conflict, another source said, echoing efforts by the Department of Homeland Security, which has aggressively pushed videos of immigration enforcement to project a view of efficient success.
But as the economic realities of Iran’s move to close the Strait of Hormuz have become clear, and with Trump increasingly frustrated by reports contradicting Hegseth’s comments about Tehran’s remaining military capability, the defense secretary has once again turned his attention to investigating leaks.
Taking a cue from Hegseth, US Central Command has repeatedly questioned deployed service members for leaks and attempted to use powers typically reserved for classification to scare troops from sharing any information, even if unclassified, according to one of the sources.
“They act like we are the enemy,” the source said.
Hegseth and tensions with the military service chiefs
One of the most prominent examples of infighting throughout Hegseth’s tenure has been with Driscoll, often due to the close relationship Driscoll has had with Vice President JD Vance. CNN has reported that Hegseth has viewed Driscoll’s relationship with the White House as an effort to go around him, an insecurity that boiled over in a previously reported disagreement last year in which Driscoll sought to get Vance and Trump to the Pentagon.
Driscoll and Vance were classmates at Yale Law School and have remained close friends. The young Army secretary has also formed his own relationship with the president, which was apparent when he was tapped by Trump to help persuade Ukraine to return to the negotiating table for talks with Russia.
Still, the Pentagon official said the writing was on the wall for Driscoll and Hegseth “from the very beginning.”
“He just has this deep-seeded distrust of the Army,” the official said.
Months before Hegseth removed George, he removed the widely respected Army vice chief of staff, Gen. James Mingus, and replaced him with his own senior military aide, Gen. Chris LaNeve. By positioning LaNeve as the vice chief of staff, it was clear the intent was for him to eventually replace George, the sources said — a theory that came to fruition when George was fired, leaving LaNeve to take over as the acting chief of staff.
Just weeks after George’s forced retirement, officials inside the Pentagon were shocked when Navy Secretary John Phelan was also abruptly fired. CNN reported that Phelan was still seeking to confirm his firing was legitimate with the White House when the Pentagon spokesman wrote on X that Phelan would depart his role “effective immediately.”
Some officials in the Defense Department mused it was surprising Phelan was removed before Driscoll.
But multiple sources told CNN the relationship between Phelan and Hegseth had similarly soured over the last several months for a number of reasons, ranging from frustration by Hegseth that Phelan wasn’t moving quickly enough on the administration’s priorities, to suspicion of Phelan’s close relationship with Trump.
One source familiar with the discussions surrounding Phelan’s firing told CNN that it was because of a growing list of “deficiencies” found with his approach to the job — largely that he was too slow moving forward on key efforts like shipbuilding and that he discouraged direct communication between senior Navy and Marine Corps officers and Hegseth’s office.
The same source familiar said Hung Cao, a Navy veteran who is now acting secretary of the Navy, was cut out of decision-making by his boss as undersecretary of the Navy. Cao knew Hegseth before the two joined the Trump administration.
Nearly a day after his ouster, Trump praised Phelan as a “longtime friend, and very successful businessman, who did an outstanding job.”
Trump has similarly continued to praise Hegseth, even as sources inside and outside the Pentagon have speculated over the last year that the president would soon move on to a new defense secretary.
In his public appearances, Hegseth often speaks directly to camera, and by extension, to Trump in a way the president likes, sources have told CNN. The president has thus far not shown a willingness to break with his defense secretary despite the drama simmering across the river.
“Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, central casting,” Trump said at a recent Cabinet hearing as Hegseth sat to his left. “He loves war.”