Posted on 06/18/2019 11:34:59 AM PDT by conservative98
Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan on Tuesday withdrew his nomination to lead the department as a report says the FBI is investigating a domestic violence dispute from nine years ago involving him and his then-wife.
Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, who has done a wonderful job, has decided not to go forward with his confirmation process so that he can devote more time to his family, President Trump wrote in a Twitter posting.
I thank Pat for his outstanding service and will be naming Secretary of the Army, Mark Esper, to be the new Acting Secretary of Defense, he continued, adding I know Mark, and have no doubt he will do a fantastic job!
Trump appointed Shanahan, a former Boeing executive, to acting secretary last December after James Mattis stepped down.
The White House said last month that the president would nominate him as permanent secretary but the paperwork was never officially sent to the Senate.
Trumps announcement on Twitter came about an hour after USA Today reported the FBI is revisiting a violent domestic dispute between Shanahan and his his now ex-wife Kimberly as part of the background investigation for his confirmation hearing in the Senate.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
I don’t know why any competent decent hardworking patriot would choose to serve in a senate confirmed position any more. It seems that the Dems and MSM have accomplished their mission.
1) Telling people all over the place that "Lockheed can't run a program", Lockheed "is all F***-ed up", and similar rants. Shanahan was high up in Boeing management and couldn't keep his pie-hole in check about how biased he was against Lockheed. By repeatedly bad-mouthing Lockheed in front of acquisition officials that became alarmed enough to lodge formal complaints, he was committing undue command influence. Not a good move for the #1 acquisition official at the Pentagon. Whether he knew it or not, he was putting out word that he was a Boeing guy and anybody in DoD acquisition that cares about their career had better be a Boeing guy, too. This is a huge legal problem. Any time that Lockheed loses a bid for contract, they're rock-solid to protest on the grounds that the SECDEF has biased the DoD acquisition process through his very own words. For this reason alone, he had to go.
2) As soon as Shanahan came in, suddenly the Air Force is buying F-15X jet fighters completely out-of-cycle, was never in the 2020 budget proposal, the decision was made with zero oversight, and without congressional approval. This is gross misappropriation of funds, not a good move for a guy that has only been in the job for 5 minutes. As Mattis was stepping out the door, he lamely said, "Uh, the F-15 buy was my idea, not Shanahan's." An IG report, responding to formal complaints inside DoD, anemically found "no wrongdoing". Yeah, whatever. Mattis is going into the business world and doesn't want to make waves on his way to making a few hundred million bucks that his kids will enjoy, of course he's going to take one for the team on his way out. But there's no denying: nobody was talking seriously about an F-15 buy until Shanahan came onboard. If it's not his doing it is the granddaddy of amazing coincidences and comes off like a big fat lie no matter how you slice it. And now that Shanahan has stepped off, the F-15X proposal is quickly dying. That right there should tell you something.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.