SASC advances Selva and four other DoD nominees to Senate

WASHINGTON — The Senate Armed Services Committee has voted to send four more Pentagon nominees to the Senate floor for approval.

They are the nominees for principal deputy undersecretary of defense, David Joel Trachtenberg; assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, Owen West, and Army undersecretary, Ryan McCarthy, Navy general counsel, Charles Stimson. It also includes the reconfirmation of vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Paul Selva.

The group was approved by a voice vote, the committee announced Thursday.

The vote means there are now nine nominees in the queue competing for time on the Senate floor for votes—at a time when the White House has struggled to advance candidates to run the federal government and Democrats have used slow-rolled confirmation votes.

Already waiting were the nominees for Navy secretary, Richard Spencer; deputy comptroller, Elaine McCusker; Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation director, Robert Daigle, and assistant defense secretary, Robert Hood.

The Pentagon’s new No. 2, former Boeing executive Patrick Shanahan, was confirmed by the Senate 92-7 on Tuesday.

Sen. Jim Inhofe, of R-Okla., has been presiding over the confirmation hearings for key Defense Department nominees, and other committee business, while Sen. John McCain recuperates from surgery for a blood clot that revealed a brain tumor.