No plan, no trans ban
Brass wait on details from WH
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday the military won’t change its policies on transgender service members until President Trump spells out how his surprise ban will work.
“There will be no modification to the current policy until the president’s policy has been received by the secretary of defense, and the secretary has issued implementation guidance,” Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford wrote in a memo to commanders.
“In the meantime, we will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect,” the general added. "As importantly, given the current fight and the challenges we face, we will all remain focused on accomplishing our assigned missions."
Dunford’s memo is further evidence that the Pentagon was blindsided by the president, who decreed in three tweets on Wednesday that transgender people would be banned from serving in the US military ”in any capacity.”
Questions swirled about how Trump’s ban, which reverses the Obama administration’s policy, would work after it was hastily announced on Twitter.
One of the main questions was how transgender people currently serving — estimates say there are 4,000 or more — would be affected.
Dunford and other top military brass were not aware that Trump was going to announce the transgender ban on Wednesday, according to one official, and the chairman’s decision puts the political hot potato back in the White House’s court.
Dunford’s statement suggested that Defense Secretary James Mattis was given no presidential direction on changing the transgender policy.
Mattis is on vacation this week and has been publicly silent amid questions about Trump's announced ban. His spokesmen declined to comment Thursday.
For the second day in a row, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders provided no details of the how the new policy would work.
“The White House will work with the Department of Defense and all of the relevant parties to make sure that we fully implement this policy moving forward and do so in a lawful manner,” she said.
Trump and Sanders both claimed Wednesday that the president made a strictly military decision.
But reports surfaced that Trump issued the ban as a sop to GOP conservatives who didn’t want the government paying for sex-reassignment surgery and were threatening to hold up a budget bill that included cash for Trump’s border wall and other priorities.