News

Critics say President Biden’s moves to clean house at America’s military service academies creates a precedent that politicizes a traditionally nonpartisan — if patronage-heavy — system.

Driving the news: The White House’s personnel office today sent letters to all six members of each of the three service academy visitors boards — overseeing West Point, Annapolis and the U.S. Air Force Academy — demanding they resign by 6pm or face termination.

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The big picture: Appointees to those academies’ visitors boards are generally permitted to serve out their terms regardless of their political affiliations even after a new president takes office.

Details: The officials targeted included H.R. McMaster, the former national security adviser and retired Army lieutenant general, who is to be honored as a distinguished graduate this weekend at West Point.

What they’re saying: “It gives every future president the precedent to just wholesale purge all of these holdovers from the previous administration … and now you dictate, from a political perspective, the outcome of some of these institutions,” said Meaghan Mobbs, a West Point graduate who was asked to resign on Wednesday.

The other side: White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that Biden, like any president, wants to “have nominees and people serving on these boards who are qualified to serve on them and who are aligned with your values.”

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