Coast Guard Lt. Cdr. Jesse Millard is up for a promotion to the rank of captain. A past whistleblower complaint and an inspector general’s report is causing some lawmakers to revisit the nomination amid a final vote expected on Thursday afternoon.
Military.com has learned that a letter from a whistleblower, former Coast Guard Commander Dr. Kimberly McLear, was written March 2, 2026, and addressed to all members of the Senate Commerce Committee through an online whistleblower portal prior to a markup session. Millard was first nominated for promotion to captain in November 2023, but had that nomination pulled on March 7, 2024.
McLear denounced Millard’s nomination and strongly discouraged his being promoted, citing a previous independent investigation by the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (DHS OIG) finding that Millard engaged in career-ending whistleblower retaliation against his subordinate (McLear), amid other accusations including violating the Military Whistleblower Protection Act.
In that March 2 correspondence to the committee, McLear painted a bleak picture of government mistrust, saying that a promotion for Millard would “perpetuate a pattern of institutional failure that Congress has already rightfully and strongly condemned.”
“I was a high-performing, permanent professor at the Coast Guard Academy with the ability to serve my country in uniform for up to 30 years, but my career was cut short by 10 years because of the abuse I endured and the debilitating PTSD that has followed ever since,” McLear wrote.
“His career advanced with fanfare, like many others the Coast Guard never held accountable. The Coast Guard has never formally apologized to me, nor have they ever held a single person who harmed me and was found guilty by the OIG and Congress, accountable,” she added.
The nomination has drawn conflicting reactions.
“The Committee has a long bipartisan record of fighting for transparency and accountability at the Coast Guard, including most recently calling for an independent Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General investigation into the Coast Guard’s handling of the Operation Fouled Anchor scandal,” a Democratic committee aide told Military.com on Wednesday.
“Promoting an individual found to have violated the Military Whistleblower Protection Act is inconsistent with efforts to improve the culture of the Coast Guard.”
Republicans view Millard’s track record and the DHS OIG findings in a different light.
“The committee reviewed hundreds of documents, interviewed multiple officers and officials, and reached the same conclusion that three separate Coast Guard review panels found: the allegations are without merit,” a committee aide told Military.com. “The real victim here is Commander Millard, whose reputation is being unfairly tarnished. He performed his duties with honor and integrity and deserves to continue in service to his fellow countrymen.”
The Senate Commerce Committee is led by Chairman Ted Cruz (R-TX) and ranking member Maria Cantwell (D-WA).
Cruz pulled Millard’s promotion from an originally scheduled March 4 markup and rescheduled it to Thursday, March 12. Military.com was told by a committee staffer that it would not take place in a typical hearing room but off the Senate floor.
Current scheduling shows Thursday’s nominations encompassing multiple services and agencies will start at 11:30 a.m. ET.
Whistleblower: Promotion Would Be 'Egregious'
In additional correspondence provided to the committee on March 3, ahead of the original March 4 markup date, McLear reiterated her concerns by saying that Millard was found guilty of creating a harassing and hostile work environment, including retaliation by the Coast Guard.
She stated how Millard was found guilty of violating the Military Whistleblower Protection Act—which, enshrined by law, prohibits reprisal against Coast Guard personnel or other service personnel who report violations of law, gross mismanagement, abuse of authority, or dangers to public safety.
“Not confirming Jesse Millard’s promotion to a coveted rank is the right thing to do and would send a message to victims of abuse in the Coast Guard that whistleblowers are actually protected instead of punished,” McLear wrote. “Given the Coast Guard never held him responsible, he never faced disciplinary action and therefore his officer record never reflected his true and unlawful misconduct.
While adding that Millard has “already slipped through the cracks” by virtue of being promoted to commander, McLear said it has happened “yet again” and “is direct evidence of institutional failure and continued harm against whistleblowers.”
I hope your committee can right this egregious wrong. As it took a lot of strength to testify of my experiences on Capitol Hill in 2019, writing this letter took an immense amount of strength for me.
“I struggle with PTSD and previously suffered form suicide ideation from the toll of the abuse of Jesse Millard and the Coast Guard top brass who have protected him and rewarded him all these years as my career was cut short 10 years," McLear added.
McLear said the situation is reminiscent of “the deeply disturbing institutional behavior later exposed by Operation Fouled Anchor in 2023,” which involved the Coast Guard Investigative Service looking into more than 100 separate allegations of sexual assault that occurred between 1990 and 2006 at the Coast Guard Academy.
“Different victims, same flag officer leadership, same methods: concealment of the misconduct, protection of perpetrators, punish the truthtellers. This is culture,” McLear said.
Inspector General Findings, 'Angry' Commander
The DHS OIG investigation took place from July 2015 to April 2018, involving reviewed evidence provided by McLear in addition to multiple witnesses. The investigation centered on whether Millard retaliated against McLear in response to her complaints of him giving her low marks on her 2016 Officer Evaluation Report (OER) after she filed harassment and EO complaints against Millard and other Coast Guard officials.
McLear filed numerous Equal Opportunity (EO) and other complaints against Coast Guard leaders at the Academy, including Millard, between July 2015 and January 2017. She had alleged discriminatory treatment based on race, gender, and a hostile work environment.
In its 44-page report finalized in 2018, the DHS OIG found that McLear “was retaliated against on the basis of her complaints, in violation of the Military Whistleblower Protection Act.”
“Specifically, a preponderance of the evidence established that her complaints were a contributing factor in the numerical marks in her OER for the period ending May 31, 2016,” reads the report. “The totality of the evidence demonstrated that Complainant would have received higher marks absent her complaints. DHS OIG thus recommends that the Secretary order corrective action with regard to Complainant’s OER.”
A source affiliated with the committee told Military.com that it’s “nearly impossible to say in good faith that Millard did not violate the Military Whistleblower Protection Act, as a legal matter.”
The DHS OIG report states that Millard “was so angry that on the same day as learning of the complaint, he drafted an email to himself demanding that Complainant apologize, then resign, for having made the complaint.”
How Marks Work
The Coast Guard uses a numerical ranking system for OERs where officers are graded by a supervisor on a 1-through-7 scale in the following categories: performance of duties, leadership, and personal qualities.
A mark of less than “6” is considered unusually low, according to the U.S. Naval Institute.
After learning of the subordinate’s complaints, Millard gave her two marks of “5” on her May 2016 OER whereas no other similarly situated officer received a “5” mark in any category over a three-year period (2015-2017). He also revised McLear’s 2016 OER three times.
When assessing McLear’s complaint, the DHS OIG report states that her accomplishments during the 2015-2016 OER period “lends itself to the conclusion that the marks were lowered based on outside influences, versus unbiased opinion and identifiable behaviors.”
The report also noted how “evidence” of Millard’s actions showed that the commander “intentionally” discussed McLear’s complaints with others “intentionally in a way that would avoid the discussion being documented.”
Also, DHS OIG found that no other officer had received a single mark of “5” in any category among the totality of Department O-3 and O-4 officers for the periods ending in 2015, 2016 and 2017.
Millard did not receive any negative Coast Guard documentation pertaining to the ROI until March 12, 2024, when he was issued a negative CG-3307 ( referred to as a “Page 7”). He had been previously promoted in September 2019 without any lawmakers’ apparent awareness of the DHS OIG report and its findings.
In December 2024, Millard filed a request to remove Page 7 from his record. On April 2, 2025, the Coast Guard convened a Personnel Records Review Board (PRRB) to consider Millard’s request.
The PRRB through its review found that marks of “5” in McLear’s May 2016 OER “were not low, do not constitute an adverse personnel action, nor do they reflect any unfair bias against [subordinate].” The OER marks “did not reflect discriminatory intent or motive to retaliate by [Millard],” the PRRB added, antithetical to the DHS OIG findings.
It was recommended to remove Page 7 from Millard’s record while positively endorsing his nomination for captain.
Senators On Opposite Sides
Cantwell has expressed vehement concern for Millard’s promotion, as part of a committee that notoriously has been bipartisan and where members have voted almost always in lockstep for new Coast Guard promotions.
A transcript of the March 4 markup shared with Military.com shows Cantwell entering McLear’s letter into the record, mentioning how Millard “retaliated against this individual.” Cruz obliged without objection.
“I will note on the Coast Guard nomination that the facts concerning Jesse Millard are highly contested, and I believe our Democrat colleagues are being very unfair and maligning an honorable Coast Guard, Guardsmen,” Cruz said in response. “We will be taking up his promotion and in a subsequent markup, and we can discuss the merits of it then, but I will say, I think the facts are markedly different from what was just suggested.”
Cantwell responded by mentioning the DHS OIG’s independent investigation and findings, hoping for “a larger debate somewhere.”
