The disappearance comes just days after Austin stopped processing new members, thus stopping a number of former President Donald Trump’s acolytes, who were still completing paperwork and undergoing security checks. to actually serve on the panels. These included Trump’s 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and deputy campaign manager David Bossie. Kash Patel, who was Miller’s chief of staff, was also out of the country, saying at the weekend that he had been sworn in but that his processing had been hampered.
The Trump administration made the appointments after starting several members of the advisory boards late last year.
Senior defense officials said the investigation includes well-known panels such as the Defense Policy Council, the Defense Council and the Business Defense Council, as well as four Trump administrations nominated in a commission that should name the Confederate leaders of military bases remove.
One senior defense official said Austin was concerned about the “frenetic activity” of sudden mass layoffs of advisory councilors and a spate of new appointments in the last months of the Trump administration.
“No doubt, the secretary was deeply concerned about the pace and extent of the recent changes to memberships of advisory committees of the department,” a senior defense official said. ‘I think it … gave him some time to consider the broad scope and purpose of these boards and to reflect on how best to align and order and put together competent, technical, professional policy advice to the Department. to offer.
“He believes this review will enable him to take a better, deeper look at this and ensure that the advisory committees provide the best possible advice, just as their purpose is,” the official added.
The move by Austin also means that four nominees on the eight-member nomination board, created by Congress as part of the annual defense legislation, will be removed. The nominees from the panel appointed by acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller last month included Trump White House liaison officer Joshua Whitehouse at the DoD, which oversaw the clean-up of advisory boards and the replacement. of it with some Trump loyalists.
The first senior defense official said Austin would nominate four new members to the commission. Asked whether the removal of councilors would delay the attempt to rename bases, a second senior official noted that the deadline for appointing members had not yet been reached and that lawmakers still need to have their four members on the panel. appoint.
“At the moment, the council has not been statutorily nominated and has not had its first meeting, so that does not put it behind schedule at all,” the second official told reporters.