Hegseth pressured the Army to fire Col. Dave Butler, right, pictured here with CNN anchor Pamela Brown, Fox has learned. (Paul Morigi/Getty Images for General Catalyst Institute)
Driscoll, an Army veteran and close ally of Vice President JD Vance, attended Yale Law School with the vice president and has resisted Hegseth’s pressure to fire Butler for months because of his ongoing contributions to the transformation of the Army.
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"We greatly appreciate COL Dave Butler’s lifetime of service in America’s Army and to our nation," Driscoll said in a statement. "Dave has been an integral part of the Army’s transformation efforts and I sincerely wish him tremendous success in his upcoming retirement after 28 years of service."
Butler traveled with Driscoll to Ukraine in November 2025 to help jump-start negotiations.
The demand by Hegseth came Thursday, Fox News has learned.
Driscoll, an Army veteran and close ally of Vice President JD Vance, attended Yale Law School with the vice president and has resisted Hegseth’s pressure to fire Butler for months because of his ongoing contributions to the transformation of the Army. (Cheriss May/Getty Images )
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One of the Army’s best communicators, Butler served alongside the nation’s tiered special operations units on countless missions overseas attached to the Army’s Delta Force from 2010 to 2014.
He served as the public affairs officer to Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, from 2015 to 2018. He worked as the public affairs officer for Gen. Scott Miller when he was Joint Special Operations Command commander from 2016 to 2018, and then, at Miller’s request, served in Afghanistan when Miller deployed there from 2018 to 2019.
Butler served as the chief spokesman and director of communications for all U.S. and NATO forces during that time that Miller served as the top 4-star general in Afghanistan.
Driscoll is currently in Geneva serving on the negotiating team to end the Ukraine war. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
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A former 4-star commander who once commanded U.S. Special Operations said Butler was "the consummate professional, the most competent Public Affairs officer I have ever worked with and a gifted practitioner of strategic communications."
During the Army’s 250th birthday celebrations in 2025, President Donald Trump recognized Butler by name for helping the Army chief to organize the parade in Washington, D.C.
Jennifer Griffin currently serves as a national security correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) and is based out of the Washington D.C. bureau. She joined the network in October 1999 as a Jerusalem-based correspondent.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/scoop-hegseth-orders-removal-army-public-affairs-chief-amid-broader-pentagon-purge