Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s acting chief of staff tried and failed to oust a senior White House liaison assigned to the Pentagon, people familiar with the matter said Monday, detailing an unusual dispute that marks the latest instance of infighting among a staff plagued by disagreement and distrust.
The clash last week between Ricky Buria, Hegseth’s acting chief of staff, and Matthew A. McNitt, who coordinates personnel policy as White House liaison at the Pentagon, appears rooted in Buria’s frustration with pushback from the White House as he has attempted to fill positions in the defense secretary’s office. It coincides, too, with the White House’s refusal to let Buria take over the powerful chief of staff job on a permanent basis.
Those familiar with the situation, which has not been previously reported, spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisal by the Trump administration.
The dispute between Buria and McNitt appears to have shaken a fragile agreement between Hegseth and the White House, which allowed Buria to serve as chief of staff only unofficially after several other people were considered for the position but declined to take it, the people familiar with the matter said. Officials at the White House, they said, intervened when Buria tried to get rid of McNitt, effectively blocking the move.
Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement that Trump is “fully supportive of Secretary Hegseth and his efforts to restore a focus on warfighters at the Pentagon,” rather than diversity efforts and “woke initiatives.”
Ninety percent of political appointments in the Defense Department have been filled, Kelly said, “and all personnel, including Matt McNitt, reflect the administration’s shared mission to ensure our military is the most lethal fighting force in the world.”
The statement did not reference Buria.
It is not clear whether Hegseth supported or approved Buria’s attempt to remove McNitt from the Pentagon, or whether the secretary was even made aware of the power play in advance.
Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman and senior adviser to Hegseth, declined to address questions about the situation, issuing a brief statement instead downplaying the intra-staff upheaval.
“When the Fake News Media has nothing to report to the American people, they resort [to] blog posting about water cooler gossip to meet their quota for clicks,” the statement said. “This kind of nonsense won’t distract our team from our mission.”
McNitt, who served in a handful of roles during the first Trump administration, could not be reached for comment. Buria did not respond to a request for comment.
Their dispute is the latest in a series of fights that has consumed the Pentagon over the first six months of President Donald Trump’s return to office. Hegseth’s tenure has been marked by abrupt firings, personality clashes, threats and other forms of dysfunction that have drawn scrutiny from Capitol Hill and continue to be closely monitored by the White House.
Buria has been at the center of much of the turmoil, seeking to isolate Hegseth from other senior advisers on his staff and assert control over the Pentagon’s inner workings, people familiar with the issues have said. A recently retired Marine Corps colonel, he has served as the de facto chief of staff since April, after Hegseth’s initial choice for the job, Joe Kasper, voluntarily departed to return to the corporate world.
Buria’s rapid transition from nonpartisan military officer to political warrior has stunned people who know him and raised questions among some Trump administration officials who remain skeptical of his warm relations with Biden administration appointees in the Pentagon while he served as a junior military aide for then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Hegseth and Buria have clashed repeatedly with top generals and admirals serving in some of the Pentagon’s senior-most positions.
Most recently, the secretary rescinded the planned promotion of Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, whose last day as director of the Joint Staff was last week. The decision, first reported last month by the New York Times, was made despite a direct appeal to Hegseth from Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The director’s job, widely considered one of the military’s most important, is being filled on a temporary basis by Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Stephen Liszewski, people familiar with the matter said. Trump in June nominated Navy Vice Adm. Fred Kacher to replace Sims, and he awaits Senate confirmation.
Hegseth, fixated on trying to stop a succession of embarrassing leaks to the news media, earlier this year threatened to have a polygraph test conducted on Sims, a detail reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal. The secretary’s team did briefly conduct polygraph tests against some Pentagon officials in April and early May, but the effort was stopped at the direction of the White House after Patrick Weaver, a political appointee on Hegseth’s team, complained that Buria wanted him to submit to testing despite Weaver’s history of supporting Trump’s agenda.
Buria also has faced scrutiny alongside Hegseth over the secretary’s use of the unclassified chat app Signal. The Defense Department’s independent inspector general has received evidence that Hegseth’s Signal account in March shared operational details about a forthcoming bombing campaign in Yemen, information taken from a classified email labeled “SECRET/NOFORN.”
That designation means defense officials believed disclosure of the information to the wrong parties could damage national security. Among those who received the information were other top Trump administration officials, but also Hegseth’s wife, Jennifer, and personal attorney, Tim Parlatore.
The inspector general’s review is, in part, attempting to establish who posted in those group chats the highly sensitive information shared under Hegseth’s name, people familiar with the matter said. In addition to the defense secretary, Buria had access to Hegseth’s personal phone and sometimes posted information on his behalf, officials have said.
Last week, Hegseth’s team at the Pentagon lashed out at the inspector general’s office in what appeared to be an attempt to undermine the inquiry’s legitimacy even before its findings are made public.
