Fired Officer Pledges To Restore ‘Accountability’ To Air Force

A former fighter pilot previously fired for warning about the embrace of Marxism in the Biden-era military pledged to restore accountability and a “warrior ethos” throughout the Air Force on Thursday.

The comments were made by Space Force Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier during his Senate confirmation hearing to be the next under secretary of the Air Force. The former officer was tapped for the role by President Trump days before the latter’s January inauguration.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Lohmeier spoke of his history serving in both the Air and Space Forces and discussed how his nominated position requires him to “be a strong advocate for a larger and better funded Department of the Air Force.” He also referenced the trust placed in him by Trump to “be a driving force behind a culture of integrity in the Department of the Air Force.”

“This includes eliminating all unnecessary distractions and enabling military members to focus on their mission,” Lohmeier said. “Secretary Hegseth has said his priorities include restoring the warrior ethos and a focus on warfighting, rebuilding the military, and reestablishing deterrence. I am firmly aligned with those priorities, and there are unique ways in which they must be accomplished in the Air and Space Forces.”

“If confirmed, all of my efforts will be nested within that framework,” he added.

Lohmeier was fired from the Space Force in May 2021 after publicly discussing the increasing presence of DEI racism throughout the armed forces.

While promoting his book during a May podcast interview earlier that month, for example, he said, “Our diversity, inclusion, and equity [DEI] industry and the trainings we’re receiving in the military via that industry are rooted in critical race theory which is rooted in Marxism.” He also reportedly criticized The New York Times’ debunked 1619 Project, characterizing the outlet’s falsified portrayal of U.S. history as “anti-American.”

As CBS News described, Lohmeier then went on to make clear that “he doesn’t care about the political views of his fellow service members, whether they’re Democrats or Republicans, but he does not want to see institutions politicized.”

Gen. Stephen Whiting — who reportedly played a role in Lohmeier’s dismissal — was promoted to lead U.S. Space Force Command by President Joe Biden. Whiting has a history of using his position to advance DEI throughout the service, as The Federalist previously reported.

While Thursday’s Senate committee hearing also considered the nominations of Daniel Zimmerman (assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs) and Justin Overbaugh (deputy under secretary of defense for intelligence and security), many of the body’s Democrats spent much of their speaking time attempting to smear Lohmeier as a dangerous partisan unworthy of confirmation.

After rattling off a series of “disqualifying” reasons behind his apparent opposition to Lohmeier’s nomination in his opening statement, ranking chair and Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., feigned outrage over a tweet the former Space Force lieutenant colonel posted in October 2024 in his capacity as a private citizen. The post, which contained a clip of Lohmeier speaking of his experiences with his then-higher-ups over “anti-American” ideology in the force, reads: “If we are fortunate enough to see a Trump presidency once again, then there will be serious consequences for those senior leaders who have broken their oath, betrayed the trust of the American people, and participated in the hyper-politicization of the uniformed services.”

In an apparent attempt to advance the left’s phony narrative that Trump is politicizing the military, Reed probed Lohmeier on what he meant by “serious consequences,” all while ignoring the rank politicization of the force that occurred under the Biden administration.

Lohmeier reaffirmed his belief in the importance of maintaining an “apolitical military,” saying “it was one of the driving, motivating factors” for the “things [he] wrote and spoke about” prior to his separation from the service in 2021. He further emphasized that he was “never publicly critical of [his] chain of command [and] was never publicly critical of [his] senior leaders while [he] served in the uniform.”

“If confirmed, [I’m] very committed to making sure that we eliminate political distractions from the military workplace. Our service members and the American people truly deserve the opportunity to serve in a nonpartisan military workplace,” Lohmeier said. “What I meant by the statement was that I believe that a Trump presidency … would take accountability very seriously. We wouldn’t overlook that kind of partisan politicization of the military workplace that I believe we had experienced in past years.”

In response to a follow-up question from Reed about potentially “target[ing] … people [he] had differences with,” Lohmeier pledged to ensure “a culture of accountability in the Department of the Air Force.” He also noted that the aforementioned post was “not intended to be retroactive or retributional in nature but simply intended to communicate that leaders who prioritize accountability and high standards will do the American people and service members a service by committing to that.”

But Reed’s dishonest interrogation was only the beginning of Democrats’ attacks on Lohmeier.

Following the predictably awful “questioning” from Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, which largely focused on smearing Lohmeier, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., took his turn attacking the former Space Force officer — even going as far as to cite a Bible verse to do so.

“There’s a beautiful phrase in the New Testament, in both the gospels of Luke and Matthew, that goes something like this: ‘From the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks.’ And, Mr. Lohmeier, I want to ask you about your very active mouth and what it reveals about your heart,” Kaine said.

Virginia’s junior senator then cited a series of Lohmeier’s tweets, one of which reads, “The Left lies about nearly everything it does. And tens of millions of Americans believe the lies.” Kaine argued that Lohmeier was “calling tens of millions of Americans ‘dupes.’”

The Democrat senator also referenced an August 2024 post from Lohmeier that mentioned the Jan. 6, 2021, demonstrations at the U.S. Capitol. Accompanied by a photo of an Air Force Times article about alleged “extremism” in the military, the tweet reads, “Picked this up in my base exchange at Buckley Air Force Base several weeks after J6. This is what the Biden/Harris administration ushered in; after a gov’t-led false flag and hoax at the Capitol, they immediately demonized the men and women in uniform. Then they purged conservatives and Christians with their shot mandates. Brilliant planning actually.”

Responding to Kaine, Lohmeier said he did “not recall having written” the latter post, saying it “could be partly a memory problem.” He then noted that he believes “private citizens in this country can have the right to express their views, as mean or as wrong as they might be, and that the men and women in uniform defend the right of the private citizen … to speak those views.”

“My concern while I was uniform was, in fact, that the kind of partisan rhetoric that I had used that you just quoted from … was actually being inserted into the military workplace in a way that divides troops, and so I was trying to hold our military cultural and workplace environment accountable to a standard of nonpartisanship … so that we can thrive in unity and not division,” Lohmeier said.

Other Democrats to pile on Lohmeier included Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Mark Kelly of Arizona, and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois.

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood