Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan informed the White House that the U.S. military must not be politicized, following a move by aides to President Trump to obscure the USS John S. McCain from Trump’s view during a presidential visit to Japan.
“Secretary Shanahan directed his chief of staff to speak with the White House military office and reaffirm his mandate that the Department of Defense will not be politicized,” Lt. Col. Joe Buccino, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement, according to Reuters. “The chief of staff reported that he did reinforce this message,” Buccino said.
The message amounts to a rare rebuke of the White House by a federal agency, all of which are subordinate to the president. Shanahan has been serving as acting secretary of defense since New Year’s Day, and Trump just last month nominated him to serve in the position in a permanent capacity.
The reaffirmation of the military’s independence stems from an incident in which the White House military office told the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet to cover the name of the warship, which was harbored in Japan, to ensure Trump didn’t see it. The directive was never carried out.
Shanahan said that he had spoken with McCain’s widow about the incident.
Trump and the late senator were bitter rivals, with Trump insulting McCain during the 2016 presidential campaign for being captured in Vietnam and McCain voting in 2017 to sink a Trump-backed effort to overhaul Obamacare.
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