Top Republicans have poured cold water on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s push to install one of his loyalists in a key Pentagon role.
Hegseth, 46, is desperate to appoint the department’s chief spokesperson, Sean Parnell, 45, as Army Secretary despite the backlash Parnell has faced over censorship of the Pentagon press corps and allegations of domestic violence.
The post opened up after Dan Driscoll, 40, resigned at the end of August after months of tensions with Hegseth over the Defense Secretary’s repeated purges of top brass perceived as disloyal to the MAGA cause.
Republican North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer is one who has shunned the idea of Parnell taking over the role. “It’s hard for me to imagine that could possibly happen,” he told The Washington Sun on Friday. “His record, particularly the spousal abuse stuff, is just a bridge too far for the vast majority of people.”
Parnell has denied allegations, which emerged during his abortive 2021 run for Senate in Pennsylvania, that he had harmed his estranged wife, Laurie Snell, and their children. She claimed during divorce proceedings that he strangled her on at least one occasion, and on two others, had hit their kids hard enough to leave marks.
Since Hegseth took office last year, Parnell has established himself as a faithful enforcer of the Defense Secretary’s agenda. He has imposed tight restrictions on journalists reporting at the Pentagon, while defending Hegseth in the face of scandals that have included allegations of gross mismanagement, serious security breaches, and potential war crimes.
“It’s just simply not feasible,” a Senate Republican aide familiar with GOP lawmakers’ thinking told the Sun. “Everyone knows the backing just isn’t there.”
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, of North Carolina, was even more candid, pledging to vote against Parnell if his nomination goes ahead.
“If we’re going to have to have Hegseth in this role, I’d at least like to have more people around him that are going to be more independent and look around corners,” he told the newspaper. “I don’t see Parnell doing that.”
Tillis, who is not running for re-election and will retire in January, has fast emerged as possibly Hegseth’s most senior public critic within Republican Party ranks, despite voting to confirm the former Fox News host last year.
The senator particularly faulted Parnell for executing Hegseth’s censorship of the Pentagon press corps. “That’s already demonstrated a lack of confidence,” he said. “If you’re proud of your work product, you want press to ask you the tough questions and answer them. If you’re worried about it, then you box them out.”
President Donald Trump, 80, has yet to formally nominate a replacement for Driscoll. The president is understood to have had an unusually good relationship with the former Army Secretary, entrusting him with negotiations on the Russia-Ukraine war, and even asking him to stay on until at least after November’s midterm elections.
GOP senators have nevertheless voiced early support for Adam Telle, former Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, who took over from Driscoll in an acting capacity after his resignation last month. “I like the guy who’s in there,” Alabama’s Tommy Tuberville told the Sun. “He’d be pretty hard to beat. He’s doing a great job.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the Pentagon and the White House for comment on this story.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly previously told the newspaper that “the president will announce a nominee for the next Secretary of the Army at a time and place of his choosing,” and that “statements from anonymous sources claiming to have insight into the president’s thinking should be treated as mere speculation.”
