The new Democratic chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said Thursday Pentagon officials were less than “fully transparent” when they testified this week on the military’s plans to carry out President Trump’s order to deploy to the southern border to bolster the fight against illegal immigration.
Chairman Adam Smith, Washington state Democrat, complained in a letter to acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan that department officials failed to disclose that some 3,500 U.S. troops were being added to the mission at a hearing this week.
Mr. Shanahan was providing the outlines of the deployment to reporters at the Pentagon even as Tuesday’s hearing was underway.
“I am deeply troubled that the witnesses did not disclose the upcoming increase in [National Guard], reserve and active-duty personnel, even though we asked them multiple times during a two-and-a-half-hour hearing what would happen next on the border,” Mr. Smith’s letter said.
“This was a best an error in judgment and at worst flat-out dishonesty,” he added.
Mr. Smith said he has spoken to Mr. Shanahan by phone and received a briefing on the troop deployment, “but a phone call is not a substitute for transparency before Congress and public candor.”
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy John Rood told the House Armed Services hearing that there would be “additional deployments of active-duty troops” to the Mexican border through the current federal fiscal year, but did not disclose the “several thousand” troop increase Mr. Shanahan revealed the same day.
• David R. Sands can be reached at dsands@washingtontimes.com.
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