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The ouster comes just days after Austin halted treatment of new members, barring a number of former President Donald Trump’s henchmen, who were still filling out paperwork and undergoing security checks, to actually serve on the panels. This included Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, and David Bossie, deputy campaign manager. Kash Patel, who was Miller’s chief of staff, also said over the weekend that he was sworn in but his current treatment was suspended.
The Trump administration made the appointments after launching several members of advisory committees late last year.
Senior defense officials said the review included well-known groups such as the Defense Policy Board, Defense Science Board and Defense Business Board, as well as four people appointed by the Trump administration to a commission tasked with removing the names of the Confederate leaders of the military bases.
A senior defense official said Austin was concerned about the “frenzied activity” of sudden massive layoffs of advisory board members and a wave of new appointees in the final months of the Trump administration.
“There is no doubt the secretary was deeply concerned about the pace and extent of recent changes in the composition of departmental advisory committees,” said a senior defense official. “I think … it allowed him to reflect on the broad scope and purpose of these councils and to think about how best to align, organize and compose them to provide competent political advice, technical and professional in the Ministry.
“He believes this review will allow him to take a better look at this in more depth and ensure that the advisory committees are in fact providing the best advice possible, as is their goal,” the official added.
Austin’s decision also means that four appointees to the eight-member Confederate renaming council, created by Congress as part of annual defense legislation, will be removed. Those appointed last month by Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller included Joshua Whitehouse, Trump’s White House liaison to the DoD, who oversaw the purge of advisory committees and their replacement by some. Trump loyalists.
The first senior defense official said Austin would appoint four new members to the commission. Asked whether removing council members would delay the effort to rename the bases, a second senior official noted that the deadline for appointing members had not been reached and lawmakers still had to appoint their four panel members.
“At present, the council has not been appointed by statute and has not held its first meeting, so it has not delayed it at all,” the second official told reporters.
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