Congress Approves Waiver For Biden’s SecDef Nominee

 

Retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin awaits confirmation from the Senate

Dave DeCamp 

Posted onJanuary 21, 2021CategoriesNewsTagsBiden

On Thursday, both the House and the Senate approved a waiver for Retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin to serve as President Biden’s secretary of defense. The Senate still must vote on Austin’s confirmation.

Under US law, a Pentagon chief is to be at least seven years removed from military service. Since Austin retired in 2016, a waiver is necessary.

Initially, some Democratic senators said they opposed the waiver, and a bloc of House Republicans released a statement against it. But ultimately, Austin’s waiver was overwhelmingly approved. In the House, it passed in a vote of 326 to 78. The waiver was passed in the Senate in a vote of 69 to 27.

Those who opposed the waiver feared it would set a dangerous precedent, since the last one was granted to James Mattis only four years ago, in 2017. Before Mattis, the last Pentagon chief that was granted a waiver was George Marshal in 1950.

Another issue some Republicans have with Austin is that they don’t think he has enough experience with dealing with China and that he wouldn’t be sufficiently hawkish enough on issues in Asia. To placate the China hawks, Biden hired Ely Ratner to advise Austin. Ratner is a China hawk who works for the interventionist Center for a New American Security think tank.

https://news.antiwar.com/2021/01/21/congress-approves-waiver-for-bidens-secdef-nominee/