William H. McRaven

Rank: Four-star admiral

Notable experience: Head of United States Special Operations Command, and architect of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011

Retirement: From the Navy in 2014

What he’s said: Last year, McRaven wrote an op-ed after Trump threatened to revoke former CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance, asking the president to revoke his as well, “so I can add my name to the list of men and women who have spoken up against your presidency.” In mid-October, he went further in The New York Times—right up to the verge of calling for the president’s removal from office: “If we don’t care about our values, if we don’t care about duty and honor, if we don’t help the weak and stand up against oppression and injustice—what will happen to the Kurds, the Iraqis, the Afghans, the Syrians, the Rohingyas, the South Sudanese and the millions of people under the boot of tyranny or left abandoned by their failing states? … President Trump seems to believe that these qualities are unimportant or show weakness. He is wrong … If this president doesn’t demonstrate the leadership that America needs, both domestically and abroad, then it is time for a new person in the Oval Office—Republican, Democrat or independent—the sooner, the better. The fate of our Republic depends upon it.”

Michael Hayden

Rank: Four-star general

Notable experience: Director of the CIA, director of the NSA, and principal deputy director of national intelligence

Retirement: From the Air Force in 2008

What he’s said: Hayden has been a strong critic of Trump almost from the beginning of his presidency, but avoided calling for an impeachment investigation until this year, when he did so in a Washington Post op-ed with Neal Katyal. In a phone conversation with us this October, he explained why: “If we survive two terms [of Trump], I think America will be very different.”

“After careful review of the articles of impeachment for President Richard M. Nixon, we now believe it is appropriate for the House of Representatives to begin the process by launching an impeachment investigation,” he and Katyal wrote for the Post. “No legislator should rush to judgment one way or the other. The process should be designed to uncover the facts … But if the facts show that Trump ordered or participated in the commission of crimes, in particular crimes that may have allowed him to win the election, we think it incontrovertible that impeachment would be warranted.”

Stanley McChrystal

Rank: Four-star general

Notable experience: Commanded special-operations forces in Iraq and the international mission in Afghanistan, and was the architect of the raid that killed the al-Qaeda in Iraq chief Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2006

Retirement: From the Army in 2010

What he’s said: Last year, McChrystal described Trump as immoral and dishonest in an interview with ABC News: “If we have someone who is as selfless and as committed as Jim Mattis resign his position, walking away from all the responsibility he feels for every service member in our forces, and he does so in a public way like that, we ought to stop and say, Okay, why did he do it? We ought to ask what kind of commander in chief he had that Jim Mattis the good marine felt he had to walk away … I think it’s important for me to work for people who I think are basically honest. Who tell the truth as best they know it. I don’t think [Trump] tells the truth.”