Army Secretary Christine Wormuth has fired a four-star general — one of just 12 in the entire service — following an investigation into accusations that he attempted to use his position to push a subordinate officer’s promotion forward, Task & Purpose has confirmed.
Gen. Charles Hamilton was relieved as the commander of Army Materiel Command, a position he had been suspended from during the investigation. The probe focused on whether Hamilton tried to pressure Army officials into promoting a lieutenant colonel that he mentored. Task & Purpose is not identifying the lieutenant colonel because there is no evidence she violated any Army policies.
“Based on the findings of a Department of the Army Inspector General investigation, the Secretary of the Army has relieved General Charles Hamilton of command,” the Army said in a statement.
Both Hamilton and the female junior officer are Black, a fact that Hamilton has said in the past was a factor in his mentoring the officer. However, he has maintained that he did not interfere in the promotion process, and he claimed in a letter to Wormuth that the selection process for battalion commanders “fails to account for the psychological effects that systemic bias, discrimination, and overt racism can have on prospective officers.”
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