January 5, 2019

Pentagon Chief of Staff Kevin Sweeney Resigns

He is the second in what is expected to be “a wave of resignations” following James Mattis’s departure.

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Another day, another resignation. This time it’s the Pentagon chief of staff, Rear Adm. Kevin Sweeney, who resigned on Saturday, offering a brief statement that made no mention of the president nor provided a reason for his departure.

“After two years in the Pentagon, I’ve decided the time is right to return to the private sector. It has been an honor to serve again alongside the men and women of the Department of Defense,” said Sweeney.

The move comes less than a week after Department of Defense Secretary James Mattis officially handed over authority to his deputy, Patrick Shanahan, a former Boeing executive with no previous government experience prior to taking the No. 2 job at the DOD in 2017. Mattis resigned in late December after clashing with Trump over the president’s decision to withdraw troops in Syria and Afghanistan.

Since then, the department has experience a shakeup. On Monday, Mattis’s chief spokeswoman, Dana White, stepped down, announcing her resignation on Twitter: “I appreciate the opportunity afforded to me by this administration to serve alongside Secretary Mattis, our Service members and all the civilians who support them. It has been my honor and privilege,” White wrote. “Stay safe and God bless.”

Her departure marked the first of what Foreign Policy suggested would likely become “a wave of resignations from Mattis’s staff,” a prediction that is now playing out.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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