The promotion of a notable Army lieutenant general, who has been tapped to lead U.S. Army Europe Command, stalled Nov. 21 when his name was left off a list of nearly 1,000 military promotions.
Lt. Gen. Christopher Donahue, the current commander of the 18th Airborne Corps, which oversees the 82nd Airborne Division, 10th Mountain Division and 3rd Infantry Division, among other units, was among the names on the Pentagon’s recommended promotion list approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier that week.
However, once the list went to the full upper chamber of the Senate, his name did not advance, Politico first reported.
The Senate will not return from its holiday recess until December.
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The Washington Post has reported that Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma put a hold on the nomination, ostensibly to give President-elect Trump and the new Republican-controlled Congress time to weigh in on the promotion.
Donahue has declined to comment on the potential promotion.
Donahue’s stalled promotion comes amid media reports, including NBC News, that President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is “compiling a list of current and former officers for possible court-martial” who were involved in the U.S. military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
Trump representatives did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.
Trump’s transition team is contemplating making a commission to investigate the withdrawal, according to reports. The investigation would seek to identify individuals who were directly involved in the military leaders’ decisions about the conduct of the exit.
Thirteen U.S. troops and an estimated 170 Afghan civilians were killed in an attack on the Hamid Karzai International Airport’s Abbey Gate during the withdrawal.
An independent review published in 2022 by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction placed blame on both the Trump and Biden administrations for the calamity of the event.
Defense Secretary nominee and former Fox News host Pete Hegseth has previously said the U.S. military needs to be “radically overhauled” and that “lots of people need to be fired,” using the “debacle” of the Afghanistan exit as an example in his 2024 book, “The War on Warriors.”
Stalled military promotions are not unprecedented. Last year, the Senate relied on a Senate floor vote procedure to bypass a hold by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., which stalled the promotions of hundreds of flag and general officers for months in an effort to overturn a Pentagon policy that provides reproductive health care and abortion access for troops.
In addition to pinning a fourth star, Donahue has been tapped to lead U.S. Army Europe Command at a volatile time with the current state of the Russia-Ukraine war.
Donahue served in special operations before commanding the Army’s Infantry School and Soldier Lethality Cross Functional Team. He then went back to his roots briefly to lead the Special Operations Joint Task Force-Afghanistan in 2019.
By 2021, Donahue was thrust into the public’s attention when he was featured in a photo as the last U.S. soldier on the ground in Afghanistan.
He led the 18th Airborne Corps and was on a contingent of 82nd Airborne Division soldiers who responded in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine.
If confirmed, he would take charge of the Army’s Europe-based assets and personnel as the United States continues in its support of NATO allies and Ukraine through training and military equipment.
Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.
