McCusker May Stay Acting DoD Comptroller Til October

PENTAGON: The Trump administration withdrew the nomination of Elaine McCusker to be the permanent Pentagon comptroller late Monday, but does not appear to be in any hurry to replace her.

McCusker, who raised alarms last summer after the White House’s decided to withhold $250 million in military aid for Ukraine, will remain the department’s acting comptroller, the position she has held since July when then-comptroller David Norquist was confirmed as Deputy Defense Secretary.

She will be able to legally serve in that acting capacity for another seven months, Pentagon spokesman Chris Sherwood confirmed Tuesday, noting that the 210 day clock “began when the nomination was withdrawn.”

That would extend her tenure through early October, should Defense Secretary Mark Esper and the White House seek to keep an official on board who they have publicly, but without explanation, rejected. She had been nominated for the job in November, after serving as deputy comptroller since August 2017.

McCusker, a career government bureaucrat, was a key player in putting together the 2020 and 2021 budgets, had a central role in last year’s first-ever Pentagon audit, and rolled out this year’s defense budget in front of the Pentagon press corps.

Things became complicated for McCusker late last summer and early fall as word filtered down through the Pentagon that the White House was withholding $250 million in military funding for Ukraine. McCusker and officials in the White House budget office traded a series of emails that were later obtained by Just Security, in which she warned the administration was in danger of breaking the law. She was also concerned that the money, if it remained in limbo by the end of the fiscal year, would be lost. 

In January, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a nonpartisan federal agency, released a decision determining McCusker was correct found the Trump administration’s hold on military assistance to Ukraine was illegal, violating the Impoundment Control Act.

It’s unclear why her nomination was pulled, or how long she’ll remain at the Pentagon, but the messy Ukraine affair has cast a long shadow over the federal government.

“Elaine McCusker is another casualty of the Trump administration’s efforts to purge public servants who put the country before fealty to the president,” Sen. Jack Reed, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee said in a statement. “The termination of her nomination is collateral damage by a president who has vindictively purged career national security professionals caught up in the impeachment inquiry.”

The pulling of her nomination without explanation comes days after Trump fired Pentagon policy chief John Rood, who also objected to the hold on Ukraine aid. The National Security Council earlier dismissed Ukraine adviser Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who testified during the president’s impeachment trial, and his twin brother, Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, who was an NSC lawyer who never testified about the Ukraine aid imbroglio.