Congress’s simmering discontent with the Pentagon’s recent decision-making and lack of transparency with its lawfully-mandated oversight body boiled over during a routine nomination hearing Tuesday , one of the few venues lawmakers have had to get answers from defense officials since the second Trump administration began in January.

Austin Dahmer was ostensibly before the committee to answer questions about how he would tackle the job of assistant secretary for strategy, plans, and forces—a job whose title and responsibilities have changed in ways that the committee was only told about on Sunday night, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the committee chairman, said during the hearing.

But because Dahmer has already been performing the duties of another high-level Pentagon official —and be

See Full Page