Norms Impact
Pentagon Pete Purges Decorated Admiral for DOGE Goon, 33
A Navy research office that steers billions in funding was stripped from an active-duty admiral and handed to a politically connected civilian, rupturing professional-command norms inside the Pentagon.
Oct 30, 2025
Sources
Summary
Rear Admiral Kurt Rothenhaus was removed as chief of naval research at the Office of Naval Research and replaced by 33-year-old former DOGE employee Rachel Riley, who has no military experience. The replacement extends a pattern of senior Defense Department departures and firings under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, including changes affecting Joint Staff leadership. The practical consequence is that a Navy office responsible for critical technical research and billions in funding is now led outside the historical norm of active-duty flag officer leadership.
Reality Check
This kind of personnel churn concentrates power by removing experienced military leadership and replacing it with politically tethered outsiders, setting a precedent that degrades institutional independence and, over time, weakens the safeguards that protect our rights from arbitrary executive control. Nothing in the described conduct clearly fits a specific federal criminal prohibition on its face—appointments and removals can be lawful—even if it reads as aggressive politicization of command-and-control. The democratic injury is the normalization of loyalty-based staffing in national security roles and the implicit warning that dissent on policy can cost careers, a classic abuse-of-office pattern even when it stays just inside the lines of criminal statutes.
Detail
<p>Rear Admiral Kurt Rothenhaus was removed from his role as chief of naval research at the Office of Naval Research (ONR), a Navy office responsible for technical research and administering billions in funding. He was replaced by Rachel Riley, a 33-year-old former DOGE employee who previously worked as a McKinsey consultant and has no prior military service. Rothenhaus assumed command of ONR in June 2023; ONR’s website still listed him as head of naval research at the time described, and the office has historically been led by an active-duty flag officer.</p><p>The U.S. Navy confirmed the leadership change and said Riley is a Rhodes Scholar who has led defense and public-sector transformations at McKinsey and in government advisory roles. The Navy declined to provide details about Rothenhaus’s next post.</p><p>Separately, Lt. Gen. Joe McGee departed as director of Strategy, Plans, and Policy on the Joint Staff earlier in the month. CNN reported sustained tension with Hegseth; the Pentagon confirmed McGee’s departure and said he is retiring while disputing CNN’s characterization.</p>