Nominee for top DoD policy job sidesteps questions on Russian invasion of Ukraine

WASHINGTON — Less than a day after President Donald Trump paused military aid to Ukraine, his pick for the top Pentagon policy job frustrated Democrats by refusing to state outright that Russia invaded Ukraine.

Elbridge Colby, who Trump nominated for the Defense Department’s undersecretary for policy in December, has previously stated that the invasion of Ukraine was “an evil act by the Russians.” However, during his confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee today, Colby repeatedly sidestepped questions on the topic, citing the sensitivity of ongoing peace negotiations led by Trump.

“I stand by my record, but at this point, I think there’s a very delicate diplomatic process going on where the president is rightfully trying to resuscitate the peace process,” he said in response to questions by SASC top Democrat Sen. Jack Reed. He later dodged similar questions from other senators, including Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, Angus King, Ind.-Maine, Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.

“It’s important to be discreet and say things at the appropriate time and place,” Colby told King.

“The problem is, you tell us you’re going to tell truth to power,” King said. “The most obvious truth is that Russia invaded Ukraine. Everybody in the world knows that, and you won’t say it here today, because it appears that you don’t want to offend the president.”

Duckworth said Colby’s refusal to state “a known fact” was tantamount to “saying you don’t know whether or not Hitler invaded Poland.”

Colby’s testimony comes days after a disastrous meeting between Trump, Vice President JD Vance — who introduced Colby during the hearing — and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House last week. The meeting was set for the parties to agree to a mineral-rights deal, but devolved into a public argument in which Trump and Vance accused Zelenskyy of being insufficiently thankful to the United States for billions of dollars in military aid. Numerous news outlets reported on Monday, citing White House sources, that Trump has paused military aid to Ukraine as a result.

Colby, whose longtime tenure in government includes positions such as the Pentagon’s deputy assistant secretary for strategy and force development, is best known as one of the authors of the Trump administration’s 2018 National Defense Strategy, which centered on great power competition with China and Russia over counterterrorism. Known within Washington circles as a foreign policy “realist,” Colby has advocated that the United States pare back its involvement in the Middle East and Europe — including its aid for Ukraine — to focus its resources against the Chinese threat.

In his opening comments, Reed said that Trump’s decision to cut military aid to Ukraine damages US relationship with its allies and could embolden China.

“The administration’s actions are doing great harm to America’s standing in the world, showing anyone who is paying attention that the United States can no longer be trusted,” he said. “President Xi will take note.”

However, Colby stood by his past statements that the US must prioritize a potential fight in the Asia-Pacific theater over its support of Ukraine.

“I don’t contest the fact that the Chinese are looking at what we’re doing in Ukraine at all,” Colby said. “But fundamentally, Senator, my view — and I think it should be of particular interest to this committee, sir — is that we have to have the military capabilities in Asia, or relevant to Asia, to be able to conduct a local defense of Taiwan at a cost and level of risk that the American people are prepared to tolerate, and that has been my main focus.”

“A longer term top priority for me would be, if confirmed, would be to revivify our defense industrial base, so that we are no longer in a position where our defense industrial base cannot produce at levels, where we can resource in multiple theaters at the level that we need,” he added.

Later in the hearing, Colby defended Trump’s actions on Ukraine, stating that the president is a “deal maker” whose unpredictability gives him leverage during negotiations.

“With President Trump, you have a very different dynamic. You don’t know what he’s going to do, but you can get a deal with him,” he said.

While Colby is likely to be confirmed, his nomination has come under scrutiny from some Republicans who have quietly questioned his noninterventionist stance on the Middle East, resulting in GOP heavy hitters like Vance and Elon Musk stepping in to defend his record, Politico reported last month.

However, only Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Dan Sullivan of Alaska asked pointed questions regarding Colby’s position in the Middle East, with both lawmakers interrogating the nominee on his position on Iran. Colby responded that a nuclear armed Iran — particularly one with access to intercontinental ballistic missiles — would be an existential threat to the United States, and that he would provide military options to the president to stop Iran from gaining access to nuclear weapons.

Multiple times throughout the hearing, Colby stated he would help support defense acquisition reform efforts, with Vance characterizing Colby as a “good guy” that would be willing to work with Democrats on such policy objectives.

“That means not just buying more weapons,” Vance said. “That means being smart about how we buy weapons in a way that enhances our technological edge and ensures that upstarts, not just the big five incumbents, but upstarts, can participate in the process of procurement and of giving our troops the weapons systems that they need.”

Colby’s reticence to assign blame for the Russia-Ukraine conflict echoed statements made by Stephen Feinberg, Trump’s nominee for deputy secretary of defense, during his nomination hearing last week.

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill this morning, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a confirmation hearing for two State Department nominees and the representative to NATO, where Democrats pressed nominees with similar questions about whether Russia invaded Ukraine.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., asked Christopher Landau, who has been nominated to be the State Department’s deputy secretary, “Do you think that Putin and Russia were the aggressors in Ukraine?”

“Senator, at this point, there are peace negotiations taking place across the world —” Landau responded before Van Hollen cut him off, and posed the same question to Matthew Whitaker, who is nominated to be the US representative to NATO.

“I’m not here to assign labels, but I would say that JD Vance on Friday said that Russia invaded Ukraine,” he responded.

“Ok, so you don’t know if they’re the aggressor,” the senator shot back.