By Oren Liebermann

(CNN) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday revoked the security detail and security clearance for Gen. Mark Milley, according to Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot, an unprecedented move against the former top US general who became a frequent target of President Donald Trump.

Hegseth, in only his second full day on the job, also directed the department’s inspector general to launch an investigation into Milley’s “conduct” to determine whether a review of his rank is necessary. The statement does not specify what conduct Hegseth believes would warrant a review of Milley’s rank.

CNN has reached out to Milley for comment. Fox News first reported that Milley’s detail had been pulled.

Only hours after Trump was inaugurated last week, administration officials had Milley’s portrait as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff removed from where it was displayed in the Pentagon. As of Tuesday afternoon, a second portrait of Milley from his time as the Army’s chief of staff was still hanging in the Pentagon.

Trump nominated Milley to be the top US general in 2018, but their relationship rapidly deteriorated during the closing months of the first Trump administration. At one point, Milley called Trump a ”fascist” and, in his final speech as Joint Chiefs chair in 2023, said the military does not take an oath to a “wannabe dictator.” It was an oblique reference to the then-former president that underscored the enmity between the two.

Trump has accused Milley of treason for a pair of phone calls Milley held with his Chinese counterpart in 2020. Trump described the calls on social media as “an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!” Milley has testified that the calls were coordinated with the defense secretaries at the time and other national security agencies.

Trump has also accused Milley of botching the withdrawal from Afghanistan, even though Milley opposed the withdrawal of US forces from the country.

Joe Kasper, the Defense Department’s chief of staff, said, “Undermining the chain of command is corrosive to our national security, and restoring accountability is a priority for the Defense Department under President Trump’s leadership.”

On former President Joe Biden’s final morning in office, he issued a blanket pardon for Milley after Trump vowed to seek retribution against those he viewed as opposing his first presidency. Biden said that Milley, in more than 40 years in the military, had deployed “to some of the most dangerous parts of the world to protect and defend democracy.”

Milley thanked Biden for the pardon, saying in a statement, “It has been an honor and a privilege to serve our great country in uniform for over four decades, and I will continue to keep faith and loyalty to our nation and Constitution until my dying breath.”

Biden’s pardon protects Milley from prosecution under criminal law and military law, but an inspector general investigation could reduce Milley’s rank if it finds wrongdoing.

In a Friday night purge, Trump fired the inspectors general from more than a dozen federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, failing to give Congress the required 30-day notice or provide a substantive rationale for the firings. An IG conducts investigations and audits into any potential malfeasance, fraud, waste or abuse by a government agency or its personnel, and issues reports and recommendations on its findings. An IG office is intended to operate independently.

During his first week in office, Trump started to carry out the political retribution he promised to unleash if voters returned him to the White House, CNN previously reported.

Within hours of his swearing in, Trump terminated his former national security adviser John Bolton’s Secret Service detail, which had been assigned to him because of threats from Iran.

Trump also revoked the security detail for his former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who, like Bolton, also received protection due to threats from Iran. And he yanked the detail from Dr. Anthony Fauci, which was being provided and paid for by the National Institutes of Health due to ongoing threats from his public-facing role during the Covid-19 pandemic.

And on Tuesday morning, CNN confirmed that former Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s official Secretary of the Army portrait — a position in which he served before becoming Defense Secretary — was removed from a hallway in the Pentagon. Esper, who is currently a CNN contributor, was fired by President Donald Trump in 2020, after months of him pushing back on the White House left him on shaky ground with the president, which senior administration officials told CNN at the time contributed to the reasoning for his firing.

Esper declined to comment on the removal of the portrait.

The portrait was previously hanging next to former Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning’s portrait, who served in the position until 2017. On Tuesday, CNN observed the empty space and markings on the wall showing where it was once hanging.

CNN’s Haley Britkzy and Natasha Bertrand contributed reporting.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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