Some Republicans loyal to the president have sought to block the elevation of Buria, whom officials say Hegseth has openly considered for his next chief of staff following a purge of top aides, by alerting the White House to his background, said two people familiar with the issue. Officials there have begun to ask questions about him, one of those officials said. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
Buria, an MV-22 pilot who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, has emerged as a top contender for one of the Pentagon’s most powerful jobs only months after being named as Austin’s junior military aide. In a prestigious but unglamorous role, a junior military aide typically acts as a defense secretary’s “body man,” shadowing him at the Pentagon or overseas, getting his meals and ensuring necessary documents are in hand for meetings or public remarks. The job exposes officers to top-level operations and typically opens doors leading to the military’s highest ranks.
Former officials who worked alongside Buria in the Biden administration said the Marine was usually the first person to greet Austin at the Pentagon in the morning and would typically remain until the retired general was ready to go home. They described Buria as competent and focused, and said he never gave any indication about his political views or suggested he disagreed with Biden-era policies.
“He was an absolute professional,” one former official said.
When Austin stepped down in January, Buria posted words of praise and gratitude for some of the outgoing secretary’s political aides, including deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh.
“I can’t wait to serve with you again,” Buria wrote on LinkedIn.
When Hegseth arrived at the Pentagon in January, Buria quickly became close with the former Fox News host and his wife, Jennifer, according to people familiar with the inner workings of Hegseth’s team. They attributed that partly to Buria’s role, in which he saw Pete Hegseth daily and traveled with him on weekends to Tennessee, where the Hegseths own a home. Hegseth, who came to his role with little Washington experience, also bounced ideas off Buria, they said.
His stature in Hegseth’s circle grew in February when Hegseth fired Buria’s boss, Air Force Lt. Gen. Jennifer Short, whom Austin had appointed as senior military aide, another nonpartisan role typically held by a three-star military officer who bridges administrations and has often gone on to be promoted to a high-profile job.
Her firing left a vacancy that Hegseth let Buria fill temporarily. As such, he was seated alongside Hegseth for bilateral meetings with foreign dignitaries, an unusual move for an officer of his rank. His relative influence expanded again when, in a sign of upheaval among his top advisers, Hegseth’s chief of staff, Joe Kasper, stepped aside and other senior aides were forced out amid a leak investigation.
That Buria had assumed Short’s role rubbed some the wrong way at the Pentagon, where hierarchy and tradition can be sacrosanct. Generals and other military staff grumbled about Buria, who was promoted to the rank of colonel only last fall, delivering curt messages from Hegseth to officers far more senior, two officials said.
Buria’s move appears all the more surprising because of the stark contrast between the two men he has served in the Pentagon’s executive suite: Austin, a reserved retired four-star general who largely avoided the spotlight after becoming the first African American defense secretary, and Hegseth, a former National Guard major and conservative TV personality who has routinely attacked critics on social media and focused on rooting out the military’s diversity programs.
