Lee has some issues with Biden defense pick
Rep. Barbara Lee urged Presidentelect Joe Biden last month not to nominate a defense secretary who had worked with a military contractor. But the Oakland Democrat is tabling that concern when it comes to retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin.
Austin, Biden’s choice to lead the Defense Department, has served on the board of Raytheon Technologies, one of the nation’s largest defense contractors, since 2016. Raytheon, which has $ 73 billion in pending orders from the federal government, was a major supplier of U. S. arms to Saudi Arabia during its war with Yemen.
“While I strongly believe we should have a bright line between defense contractors and Cabinet officials, if ( Austin is) confirmed, I intend to work with him to end these forever wars and rein in our bloated defense budget,” Lee, a longtime advocate for cutting the Pentagon’s budget, said Wednesday in a statement to The Chronicle.
Lee’s reluctance to forcefully oppose Austin is one shared by other Democrats. If confirmed, Austin, the former head of U. S. Central ComRep.
mand, would be the first Black person to lead the Pentagon. He has been praised by top Democrats including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, who said the fourstar general was “widely respected” and “particularly wellpositioned to lead during this precarious moment.”
Biden called Austin “the definition of duty, honor, country” in formally nominating him Wednesday.
But Lee is concerned that Austin would be the latest person to walk through the revolving door between the Pentagon and federal military contractors. In 2016, the top 20 military contractors hired 645 “senior government officials, military officers, members of Congress and senior legislative staff as lobbyists, board members or senior executives,” according to a report called “Brass Parachutes” from the nonpartisan watchdog group Project On Government Oversight.
The report warned that the influx of former military leaders into civilian roles “confused what is in the best financial interests of defense contractors — excessively large Pentagon budgets, endless wars, and overpriced weapon systems — with what is in the best interest of military effectiveness and protecting citizens.”
Concerned about this cozy relationship, Lee and Rep. Mark Pocan, DWis., wrote a letter to Biden last month to “request that the next defense secretary have no prior history with a defense contractor.”
They didn’t want a repeat of what happened during the Trump administration when three Pentagon chiefs had ties to military contractors.
Mark Esper was a Raytheon lobbyist, Patrick Shanahan worked for Boeing for 30 years, and retired Gen. James Mattis served on the board of General Dynamics.
“We strongly encourage you to reject the mistakes of the Trump era,” the letter said, “and commit to appointing Secretaries of Defense with no
previous ties to military contractors.”
Austin’s nomination puts some Democrats in a bind on other fronts. His nomination would require Congress to waive a law requiring a Pentagon chief to wait seven years after ending active duty service before assuming the military’s top civilian post. Austin retired in 2016.
That waiver has been granted only twice, most recently in 2016 for Mattis. Only 36 House Democrats voted to grant Mattis’ waiver, including two Bay Area Democrats, Reps. Mike Thompson of St. Helena and Anna Eshoo of Palo Alto. Both California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris were among the 81 senators who backed the waiver.
Lee opposed that waiver, as did Rep. Ro Khanna, DFremont, a member of the House Armed Services Committee. Khanna was noncommital about supporting Austin, saying he looked forward to hearing him testify before the committee. Lee declined to comment on her position on a waiver for Austin.
“No candidate is perfect,” Khanna said this week on The Chronicle’s “It’s All Political” podcast.
Khanna, who has been a congressional leader in demanding that the U. S. pull its support for Saudi Arabia in its war against Yemen, said opposing a waiver for Austin will be politically difficult for many Democrats.
“If we did it for Mattis ... now to say we’re not going to do it for the first African American to head up the department seems hypocritical,” Khanna said. “So at the very least, we should do it as a matter of equity.”
He added: “Mattis has had a very independent mind ( when it came) to policy, whereas Gen. Austin seems to be one who has deferred to civilian leadership and shown restraint. And I think he would defer to President Biden.”