In 2021, President Joe Biden removed all 18 of Donald Trump’s appointees from the boards of the nation’s military academies, such as West Point and the Naval Academy. A federal judge eventually upheld this decision.
On Monday, Trump returned the favor by removing all existing members from the academy boards of visitors, regardless of who appointed them. Among those pushed out in the purge: U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, who served as one of the congressional appointees on the Naval Academy’s board of visitors.
“Our service academies have been infiltrated by Woke Leftist Ideologues over the last four years,” Trump posted on social media. “I have ordered the immediate dismissal of the Board of Visitors for the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard.”
“We will have the strongest Military in History, and that begins by appointing new individuals to these Boards. We must make the Military Academies GREAT AGAIN!”
Shaheen did not respond to a request for comment about Trump’s actions.
Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer was one of the Trump appointees purged from the West Point board by President Biden, and he went to court to fight the action.
“It was an unprecedented move; never before in history had a president dismissed a member of the board of a service academy without cause prior to the end of their term,” Spicer wrote in a recent New York Post op ed. “Trump had not done so, nor had President Barack Obama.”
Spicer noted that he was removed despite more than 20 years of U.S. Navy service and a degree from the Naval War College. Also pushed out by Biden: Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster.
Asked if Biden set the precedent for Trump’s actions, Shaheen declined to answer.
