Navy Times 7/9/2019 By: Meghann Myers
The clock is ticking. The Pentagon has until the end of this month to get a secretary confirmed before Congress and the White House get involved with the Defense Department’s long-vacant top job.
Following former Defense Secretary James Mattis’s resignation last year, and the June nomination withdrawal of his no. 2, former Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, top defense officials are putting together contingencies for keeping leadership in place at the department after multiple setbacks. Best case scenario: Acting Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who had been serving as Army secretary since late 2017, gets a confirmation hearing and a Senate vote in the next couple of weeks.
“Our expectation is that’ll be shortly,†a defense official told reporters on background Tuesday.
Under federal law, Esper cannot be considered for the Pentagon’s top job while he serves in the “acting†role, so the plan is to send him back to the Army after the Senate announces they have received his nomination for SECDEF. Then current Navy Secretary Richard Spencer will step into the acting role during the confirmation process.
“Within the last two weeks, we’ve been spending time with Secretary Spencer, to get him ready,†SECDEF chief of staff Eric Chewning told reporters.
As a service secretary, Spencer is familiar with the manning, training and equipping side of the job, but he “has not been exposed to the range of operational issues that the secretary of defense is responsible for,†Chewning added.
Meanwhile, in the services, Army Undersecretary Ryan McCarthy has been “performing of the duties of the Army secretary†since Esper took office on June 24, and Army general counsel has been performing the duties of the undersecretary.
More:
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/07/09/army-navy-face-big-shake-up-on-the-road-to-confirming-the-next-secdef/
