Top defense intelligence official and former SEAL Team 6 commander walks off the job amid post-election Pentagon purge

Joseph Kernan testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee during their confirmation hearing for positions in the Department of Defense in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill November 2, 2017 in Washington, DC.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

• The Pentagon's top intelligence official, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Joseph Kernan, resigned Tuesday.
• His resignation follows the firing of Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and comes amid the resignation of the chief of staff to the Secretary of Defense Jen Stewart and acting Under Secretary of Defense for Policy James Anderson.
• Lawmakers have already started to sound the alarm, with Rep. Adam Smith writing in a statement that "it appears that chaos has now reached the Pentagon."
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The Pentagon's top intelligence official left his job Tuesday amid a flurry of departures following the firing of Secretary of Defense Mark Esper the day before.

Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Joseph Kernan effectively resigned from his post Tuesday, the Pentagon said in a statement.

Kernan is a retired US Navy admiral and former Navy SEAL who previously served as the commander of SEAL Team 6 and SEAL Team 2, as well as Naval Special Warfare Command. At the Pentagon, he served as the defense secretary's representative to the intelligence community.

Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operation and Low-Intensity Conflict Ezra Cohen-Watnick, an advisor who has bounced around Trump administration departments will take over Kernan's duties in an acting capacity.

The Pentagon said that Kernan's departure has been planned for months, but it notably comes the same day two other Department of Defense officials resigned.

In its statement, the Pentagon said that the chief of staff to the Secretary of Defense Jen Stewart resigned and has been replaced by Kash Patel, a member of the National Security Council and a former Hill staff who worked to discredit the Russia probe.

Earlier in the day, it was reported that acting Under Secretary of Defense for Policy James Anderson, the Pentagon's top policy official, had resigned and been replaced by Trump loyalist and Fox News guest Anthony Tata, who the Trump administration slipped into the Pentagon after lawmakers raised concerns about Tata's tweets, including one that said former President Barack Obama was a "terrorist leader."

These changes at the Pentagon come just one day after President Donald Trump abruptly fired Esper, sending out a tweet that simply said that he was "terminated" and that he would be replaced by National Counter-Terrorism Center Director Chris Miller in an acting capacity.

The upheaval of the Pentagon's civilian leadership risks creating uncertainty and instability in the final weeks of the Trump administration.

Rep. Adam Smith, a Democrat and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, sounded the alarm Tuesday afternoon following the departures of Esper and Anderson.

"It is hard to overstate just how dangerous high-level turnover at the Department of Defense is during a period of presidential transition," he wrote in a statement. "The top policy professional in the Department resigning the day after the Secretary of Defense was fired could mark the beginning of a process of gutting the DoD – something that should alarm all Americans."

'As soon as Former Vice President Biden became President-elect Biden, President Trump and those loyal to him started to sow chaos and division," he added. "It appears that chaos has now reached the Pentagon."

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