WASHINGTON, D.C. (TIP): Five former defense secretaries on Thursday, February 27, denounced President Donald Trump’s firing last week of the Joint Chiefs chairman and several other senior military officials, urging Congress to hold hearings and declaring they have concluded the officers were “fired for purely partisan reasons”, says a Washington Post report.

The extraordinary public appeal was signed by Lloyd Austin, Jim Mattis, Chuck Hagel, Leon Panetta and William Perry — who served in Republican and Democratic administrations dating back to the 1990s — after Trump’s Friday night firings caused an uproar on Capitol Hill and among many military veterans.

“We are deeply alarmed by President Trump’s recent dismissals of several senior U.S. military leaders,” the letter opens. “We write to urge the U.S. Congress to hold Mr. Trump to account for these reckless actions and to exercise fully its Constitutional oversight responsibilities.”

Among those ousted on Friday were Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the Pentagon’s top officer; Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the head of the Navy; Gen. James Slife, the Air Force’s vice chief of staff; and the top military lawyers for the Army, Navy and Air Force. Trump’s defense secretary, former Fox News personality Pete Hegseth, also removed his senior military assistant, Air Force Lt. Gen. Jennifer Short. The head of the Coast Guard, Adm. Linda Fagan, was fired the day after Trump’s inauguration.

The Trump administration has sought to downplay the dismissals, noting that previous presidents also have fired prominent generals. Those dismissals, however, typically had a proximate cause.

“The President offered no justification for his actions, even though he had nominated these officers for previous positions and the Senate had approved them,” the letter says. “These officers’ exemplary operational and combat experience, as well as the coming dismissals of the Judge Advocates General of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, make clear that none of this was about warfighting.”

Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council, said in a statement Thursday that Trump is the commander in chief and his actions are “well within” his authority — a point that most critics have not disputed.