Mike should answer the question.
Arguably Trump should too.
Why didn’t we know we had been placed on a war footing, and that this was a DOD operation?
From bits and pieces, if I speculate, this was a DoD operation before Trump even was elected. And I don't think it was DoD in its entirety, but elements within it.
Tie those into the biolabs found in Ukraine (and that facility in Somalia), and something starts to smell, bad.
And I would bet that Trump was kept in the dark, because whatever was going on wasn't on the up and up, possibly even something that (paraphrasing Hillary) would put necks in nooses.