Loyalty questions prompt another high-ranking Pentagon official to exit

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OUT OF ALIGNMENT: For the second time this week, a high-ranking Pentagon official has resigned after her nomination for a top job was pulled by the White House over questions about whether the nominee was sufficiently aligned with the views of President Trump.

The resignation of Kathryn Wheelbarger, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, comes two days after Elaine McCusker, the Pentagon’s acting comptroller, submitted her resignation after her nomination to fill the job permanently was withdrawn.

McCusker had reportedly questioned the legality of the Trump administration’s efforts to freeze military aid to Ukraine. Wheelbarger was nominated in February for promotion to deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security, the No. 2 intelligence post at the Pentagon.

“Both current and former U.S. officials accused the White House of passing over Wheelbarger because of her past work with the late Republican Senator John McCain, a fierce Trump critic and former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee,” reported Reuters.

Last Friday, the White House announced that Bradley Hansell, a former special forces officer and assistant to Trump, would be nominated for the deputy undersecretary role instead of Wheelbarger.

PRAISE FROM ESPER: Defense Secretary Mark Esper praised both women as he accepted their resignations this week. In a statement Tuesday, he said of McCusker, “Elaine has worked tirelessly to ensure that our budgeting and audit processes give full value to the taxpayer while meeting the enormous security needs of our nation as well as the men and women who serve it.”

In a statement yesterday, Esper called Wheelbarger “someone I got to know well over the last three years” and expressed “sincere appreciation for her many contributions and years of service.”

“Katie brought a wealth of experience and the utmost professionalism to the Department throughout her service,” he said. “Her leadership in support of the National Defense Strategy is evident in the proud accomplishments of her team.”

CONCERNS ABOUT POLITICIZATION: Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, is warning against what he called “partisan interference with the military’s merit-based promotion system.”

Reed did not mention a name but appeared to be referring to Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who is among hundreds of Army officers selected to be promoted to full colonel. Vindman testified before the House impeachment investigation about a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, drawing the ire of Trump, who fired Vindman as well as his twin brother, Yevgeny, from the National Security Council as soon as the Senate acquitted him.

“It has been publicly reported that White House officials may now be seeking to interfere with the promotion board results of two soldiers for political reasons,” Reed said. “I do not know the results of that promotion board, nor should I. The Army decides these cases on the merits, and I would hope the White House does as well.”

“The promotion process is about individuals, but it also sends a signal to our troops about what kind of soldiers get promoted. Professionalism, character, skill, and integrity must be paramount, not partisanship,” he said. “Civilian control of the military is a bedrock principle of our government. Civilian defense leaders, including the Secretary of Defense, have a duty to shield uniformed military personnel from undue partisan pressures.”

Good Friday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, written and compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) and edited by David Sivak and Tyler Van Dyke. Email here with tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. Sign up or read current and back issues at DailyonDefense.com. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll add you to our list. And be sure to follow us on Twitter: @dailyondefense.

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HAPPENING TODAY: Federal Judge Royce Lamberth has scheduled an emergency hearing via video conference for this afternoon to hear arguments from the Justice Department in its request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction barring the release of John Bolton’s White House memoir, The Room Where It Happened, which is already in the hands of most major media organizations.

The book is scheduled to be officially released Tuesday but has already shown up on the shelves of Washington-area booksellers and has been delivered to some Amazon subscribers. But the Trump administration wants publisher Simon & Schuster to halt distribution of the book, arguing it contains classified information that compromises U.S. national security.

In an interview with ABC News scheduled to air Sunday night, Bolton said Trump is not “fit for office” and called him “stunningly uninformed.”

TRUMP COUNTERATTACKS: “Bolton’s book, which is getting terrible reviews, is a compilation of lies and made up stories, all intended to make me look bad,” Trump tweeted yesterday. “Many of the ridiculous statements he attributes to me were never made, pure fiction. Just trying to get even for firing him like the sick puppy he is!”

In a follow-up interview on ABC, Bolton called the Twitter attacks “unbecoming of the office of president” and insisted he was careful not to include any classified information in his book, which he said “went through four arduous months” of pre-publication clearance “making sure there was nothing classified.”

“The president isn’t worried about foreign governments reading this book. He’s worried about the American people reading this book,” Bolton told ABC’s Martha Raddatz. “He knows it will be factual, and he doesn’t want the facts out on the record.”

‘I WAS IN THE ROOM, TOO’: Last night, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo put out a statement backing up Trump’s contention that the book is fiction.

“I’ve not read the book, but from the excerpts I’ve seen published, John Bolton is spreading a number of lies, fully-spun half-truths, and outright falsehoods,” Pompeo said in a press statement titled “I Was In The Room, Too.”

“It is both sad and dangerous that John Bolton’s final public role is that of a traitor who damaged America by violating his sacred trust with its people,” he said.

ESPER ON DIVERSITY: These days, leaders of big organizations are issuing messages about diversity, and the Pentagon is no exception. Yesterday, Esper tweeted a video address announcing an initiative to enhance “diversity and inclusiveness” in the U.S. military.

“We are not immune to the forces of bias and prejudice — whether visible or invisible, conscious or unconscious,” said Esper. “We know this bias burdens many of our service members and has direct and indirect impact on the experiences of our minority members, the cultural and ethnic diversity of the force, and representation in our officer ranks. These things have no place in our military; they have no place in our country.”

You can read Esper’s full remarks here.

RUSSIAN PLANES IN LIBYA: U.S. Africa Command says it has photographic evidence that Russian aircraft are being used to support private military companies in Libya that are sponsored by the Russian government.

“Russia’s sustained involvement in Libya increases the violence and delays a political solution,” said U.S. Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Bradford Gering, AFRICOM’s director of operations, in a statement. “Russia continues to push for a strategic foothold on NATO’s southern flank and this is at the expense of innocent Libyan lives.”

In late May, U.S. Africa Command reported that at least 14 MiG-29s and several Su-24s were flown from Russia to Syria, where their Russian markings were painted over to camouflage their Russian origin. “These aircraft were then flown into Libya in direct violation of the United Nations arms embargo,” the United States says.

Related: The Washington Examiner’s Abraham Mahshie reports: US ‘behind the curtain’ in Libya conflict as Turkey and Russia vie for influence.

‘SLOPPY THINKING’: A retired three-star general who’s written a book on military ethics says lumping protesters with rioters and looters represents “sloppy thinking” and says combat operations in Iraq offer lessons about what not to do when using military force for crowd control.

In a recent op-ed, retired Lt. Gen. Jim Dubik advocates “better thinking” to distinguish between legitimate, peaceful protests and the lawlessness of rioting and looting, and he cites the U.S. experience during the 2007 ‘surge’ in Iraq as an example.

“U.S. troops there recognized that those who opposed coalition forces were not a homogenous group. Rather, there was a spectrum of actors, from hard-core Sunni terrorists at one end to hard-core Shia terrorists at the other. In the center of the spectrum were the destitute, who had no political motivation; they performed violent actions for money,” Dubik writes.

In applying the lessons to the domestic situation in the U.S., Dubik argues, “better thinking would figure out a way to protect the protesters and their rights in such a way as to isolate them from the lawless. Better thinking may even enlist protester support in identifying the lawless. In fact, there’s ample evidence that some protesters have tried to quell the violence, identify the lawless and hand them over to police.”

The Rundown

Washington Examiner: Head of US Central Command: Iraqi army ‘good enough’ to fight ISIS

Washington Examiner: US ‘behind the curtain’ in Libya conflict as Turkey and Russia vie for influence

Washington Examiner: Leaked: Trump’s ‘exact words’ to Xi Jinping blocked by White House review of Bolton book

Washington Examiner: Former NATO commander warns against withdrawing troops from Germany

Washington Examiner: Defense analyst sentenced to 30 months for leaking classified information to journalists

Washington Examiner: Grassley ends hold on Trump nominees after getting answers on whistleblower firings

Reuters: U.S. Lawmakers Offer Bill To Block Trump From German Troop Withdrawal

Defense News: DoD Reports Would Be Public Under New Amendment To Must-Pass Defense Bill

Military Times: New Pentagon Team Is Going To Take On Racial Justice In The Military

Military.com: SecDef Proposes Getting Rid of Military Promotion Photos to Eliminate Unconscious Bias

Politico: Trump Loyalty Purge Roils Pentagon

Reuters: North Korea Continues To Present ‘Extraordinary’ Threat To Region – Pentagon Official

Washington Post: Top State Department official resigns in protest of Trump’s response to racial tensions in the country

New York Times: Air Force Investigates Military Planes That Monitored Protesters

AP: Taiwan Unveils Plan To Help Hong Kongers Looking To Leave

Air Force Magazine: ACC Aims to Cut Pilot Training Time By Up to Half

USNI News: Marines Considering Adding Land-Based Hypersonic Weapons to Arsenal

Air Force Magazine: B-2s Train in Arctic as USAF Prepares to Release Strategy for the Region

Washington Post: Could A Russia-U.S. Prisoner Swap Happen?

Popular Mechanics: Navy Super Hornets Can Now Carry The Stormbreaker Bomb

USNI News: Theodore Roosevelt Super Hornet Crashes in Philippine Sea; Pilot, Weapon Systems Officer Safe

Task & Purpose: Special Operations Marine Killed During Airborne Training ‘Lived The Ethos That Defines Our Marine Raider Culture’

Washington Examiner: OPINION: China develops weapons to fry US electric grid, eyes high-tech ‘Pearl Harbor’ attack

Lawfire: OPINION: Mackenzie Eaglen on “5 Lessons the U.S. Military Learned From the Pandemic”

Calendar

FRIDAY | JUNE 19

8:30 a.m. — Center for Strategic and International Studies webcast, “Cross-Strait Relations in Tsai Ing-wen’s Second Term,” with Chiu Chui-Cheng, deputy minister of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council; Yun Sun, co-director of the Stimson Center’s East Asia Program; Ryan Hass, interim chairman in Taiwan studies at the Brookings Institution; and I-Ching Lai, president of the Prospect Foundation. https://www.csis.org/events/online

MONDAY | JUNE 22

11 a.m. Rayburn 2118 and Cisco Webex — House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Emerging Threats and Capabilities markup of National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2021. https://armedservices.house.gov/hearings

1 p.m. Rayburn 2118 and Cisco Webex — House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces markup of National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2021. https://armedservices.house.gov/hearings

TUESDAY | JUNE 23

8:30 a.m. — German Marshall Fund’s virtual Brussels Forum, with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in conversation with Markus Preiss, Brussels bureau chief, ARD. https://sites-gmf.vuturevx.com

11 a.m. Rayburn 2118 and Cisco Webex — House Armed Services Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces markup of National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2021. https://armedservices.house.gov/hearings

1 p.m. Rayburn 2118 and Cisco Webex — Subcommittee on Military Personnel markup of National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2021. https://armedservices.house.gov/hearings

3 p.m. Rayburn 2118 and Cisco Webex — Subcommittee on Readiness markup of National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2021. https://armedservices.house.gov/hearings

4:30 p.m. Rayburn 2118 and Cisco Webex — Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces markup of National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2021. https://armedservices.house.gov/hearings

THURSDAY | JUNE 25

11 a.m. — German Marshall Fund’s virtual Brussels Forum, with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in conversation with Bojan Pancevski, Germany correspondent, the Wall Street Journal. https://sites-gmf.vuturevx.com

11 a.m. — Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments webinar to release its new report: “Forging the Tools of 21st Century Great Power Competition,” with author Thomas Mahnken and Eric Edelman, counselor at CSBA. Register: https://zoom.us/webinar/register.

TUESDAY | JUNE 30

12 p.m. — Association of the United States Army “Noon Report,” with Gen. Paul E. Funk II, commanding general, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. https://www.ausa.org/events/noon-report-funk

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“In some cases, just put your own quotation marks around the relevant passages; you won’t go far wrong.”

Former national security adviser John Bolton noting that in many cases, the government censor reviewing his book merely required him to take quotation marks off direct quotes from the president.

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