Task and Purpose
Politics, Americas
It is more complicated than you think.
Will Legal Restrictions Prevent Mark Esper from Being Secretary of Defense?
It’s unclear what happens if we hit the 210-day deadline with no confirmed secretary, and without a nomination sent to the Senate, but the timeline is getting tighter by the day.
It’s a good thing we’re not racing headlong into a war with Iran or some other equally daunting geopolitical catastrophe, because the task of actually filling the Pentagon’s top job is starting to look like an increasingly messy task.
After Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan withdrew from consideration for permanent secretary, President Donald Trump tapped Army Secretary Mark Esper to take over as his second Acting Secretary of Defense in five months.
But unfortunately for both Trump and Esper, a federal law from 1998 puts a number of legal hurdles in their way.
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