Nomination of Colin Hackett Kahl
Floor Speech
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Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I rise today to oppose Colin Kahl's nomination for Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and I advise my colleagues to do the same, as we are getting ready to take a vote on this very important position in the Pentagon. That, to me, is one of the most important positions we have at the Department of Defense.
While I have many policy disagreements with Dr. Kahl, which I have discussed at length with him, I want to say I have a long history of working across the aisle, with Democrats and Republicans, on defense issues, even with those with whom I don't agree on their policies. As a matter of fact, the Presiding Officer and I have a very strong working relationship, and we don't agree on a lot of issues, particularly on issues of the military.
I serve on the Armed Services Committee, and I take these matters very seriously. They are some of the main reasons I ran for the U.S. Senate 6\1/2\ years ago. I focus a lot on military personnel, uniform and civilian, whom we put in the Pentagon and who have this enormous responsibility to oversee the Department of Defense.
Whether they are Assistant Secretaries, Under Secretaries, admirals, or generals, I try to understand where they are coming from, and I have a record of strongly supporting almost all of them, whether they have been in the Obama administration, the Trump administration, or even are in the Biden administration. For example, I not only supported the Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, knowing that I wasn't going to agree with him on everything, but I actually introduced him at his confirmation hearing because I served with him in the military, and I know he is a man of honor and character. I strongly supported the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Kath Hicks, given her background and knowledge. Yet some nominees I have not and I will not support, particularly in this area that is so important to our Nation's defense. I will object to these people because, like Dr. Kahl, I don't believe he has the temperament or judgment to do the job.
Like I said, I have looked at and focused on dozens and dozens of members with regard to their temperament and judgment who need Senate confirmation to the Department of Defense. The vast, vast majority, Democrat or Republican, I have supported but not this one. And this is a really important position. The Under Secretary of Defense for Policy is essentially the No. 3 position in the Pentagon.
As I mentioned, it is my view and, I believe, the view of most of my colleagues, at least on this side of the aisle, that Dr. Kahl does not have the temperament or judgment. In fact, I believe that he has the potential to be a liability to our national security and our defense and not to be viewed favorably by the men and women he is supposed to lead.
Let me talk about temperament and give a little bit of background.
Not even a year ago, a number of Senate Democrats, my colleagues, wrote of the official who was nominated by the Trump administration for this same position, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, BG Anthony Tata. The letter that was signed by a number of my Senate Democratic colleagues, many of whom are on the Committee on Armed Services, focused on that nominee's record of ``offensive and inflammatory comments which would disqualify you from serving in your current position and the position for which you have been nominated.'' That is one of the quotes. Remember, this was for the same position but with the Trump administration.
This letter also read that he had made inflammatory remarks regarding the President--that would be President Obama--and inflammatory remarks regarding rhetoric for Members of Congress as well. Again, that was last year. This is the standard that was being used.
This letter goes on to read:
Your multiple past statements cannot be dismissed as simple aberration.
Senate, Washington, DC, July 24, 2020. Brigadier General (ret.) Anthony J. Tata, Senior Advisor, U.S. Department of Defense, Washington, DC.
Dear Brigadier General Tata: We write to urge that you withdraw your nomination to be Under Secretary of Defense for Policy at the Department of Defense (the Department) and resign your current position as a senior advisor. Your record of offensive and inflammatory comments disqualifies you from serving in your current position and the position for which you have been nominated.
If confirmed by the Senate to be Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, you would become ``the principal official reporting to the Secretary of Defense who is responsible for policy development and planning [. . .], lead[ing] the formulation and coordination of national security and defense policy with the Department of Defense [. . .], integrat[ing] policies and plans to achieve desired objectives [. . . and] build[ing] partnerships and defense cooperation with U.S. friends and allies. In other words, you would have significant, wide-ranging influence on the policies and activities of the Pentagon and defense relationships with our most critical allies and partners.
Anyone nominated to be a high-ranking Pentagon official must be qualified and also a person of high character whose record is consistent with the values of our country and those of the U.S. military. Nominees should see the value diversity, inclusion, and unity bring to our institutions. Unfortunately, your history of public remarks does not meet this standard. In 2018, you said that Islam is the ``most oppressive violent religion I know of,'' and that the 2015 agreement to block Iran's pathways to a nuclear weapon alone is more than enough evidence of [former President Barack Obama's] drive to subvert U.S. national interests to Islam and a globalist agenda. You called President Obama a ``terrorist leader'' and alleged that the former president ``made no secret of his belief that a weaker America made for a stronger world. Moreover, you falsely claimed that President Obama ``is a Muslim--repeating a claim used by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and others who attempt to incite anti-Muslim prejudice and otherize Islam by suggesting it is an inferior religion and synonymous with terrorism. You also said in a now-deleted tweet on July 2, 2018, ``Never a doubt. Among dozens of clues, Obama supported Russian meddling in 2016 election & influenced Israeli elections to try to oust Netanyahu & help Hamas & Muslim brotherhood U.S. really did have Manchurian Candidate in White House.
Unfortunately, your inflammatory remarks did not stop there. You reserved further dishonorable and disqualifying rhetoric for members of Congress as well. For example, you claimed that Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Congresswoman Maxine Waters ``have always been the same violent extremist'' and referred to Congresswoman Waters in particular as a ``vicious race baiting racist.'' Only after your nomination became public and reports exposed your repugnant statements, many of which you deleted, you walked them back in a recent letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman and Ranking Member. In that letter, you reportedly refer to your offensive tweets as an ``aberration in a four-decade thread of faithful public service. Furthermore, you noted that despite your ``strong record of inclusivity and bipartisanship in my commentary,'' you ``did misspeak in 2018 on Twitter in hyperbolic conversations'' and that ``[t]here is no excuse for those comments, for which I take complete responsibility and also fully retract and denounce.''
Your letter to committee leadership appears to be a conveniently timed retraction by someone who has suddenly realized his nomination is in jeopardy. But your multiple past statements cannot be dismissed simply as an aberration. No one with a record of repeated, repugnant statements like yours should be nominated to serve in a senior position of public trust at the Pentagon. Your views are wholly incompatible with the U.S. military's values.
Thank you for your attention to this matter. We call on you to withdraw your nomination.
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Mr. SULLIVAN. You have almost the identical situation here. What happened with General Tata is that his nomination, for a lot of these reasons, was withdrawn by the Trump administration. Yet now you have the same, almost identical issues with this nominee, and when I showed this letter to my Democratic colleagues, they were like, ``Oh, no. That's OK.'' It is not OK. It is not OK.
So let's talk about temperament and tweets with Dr. Kahl.
Really, the issue here is, is he more of a political hack who is tweeting all of the time--he tweets quite a lot--or is he somebody with the temperament of a partisan internet troll, or is he a measured national security professional who can lead the Pentagon in the No. 3 position? Unfortunately, I think it is the former issue, not the latter. He has a long history of tweets.
Just like the issues that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle objected to last year for this same position with the Trump administration's nominee, who was withdrawn for these reasons, here is just a small example of Dr. Kahl's tweets. These are the same issues that my colleagues were concerned about. There have been a lot of attacks on Members of Congress. OK. That is fine. We are in the public arena.
Here is what he wrote:
The GOP used to pride itself as the party that put values front and center in U.S. foreign policy. Now they are the party of ethnic cleansing.
OK. I don't think we are the party of ethnic cleansing. That is pretty strong stuff.
He tweeted more:
Let's not mince words. The Trump administration kidnapped children. The Republican Party, in terms of national security, are now part of a ``death cult.''
He retweeted the now discredited Lincoln Project attacks. I know a lot about them. It spent a lot of money in my race. It is a very discredited group of people, by the way. Very disturbed are some of their leaders at the Lincoln Project.
He calls and tweets that the President of the United States, the Commander in Chief, is a moron, is repugnant, is a coward. He went on to call my colleagues in the Senate many additional things that I won't repeat here. He did this a lot.
No matter what your views are of my colleagues or of the former President, words matter, and attacks matter. If you can't refrain from making them, maybe you don't belong in the No. 3 position in the Pentagon. That was the conclusion that pretty much everybody made last year, so why should it be different with this candidate? It shouldn't be different.
Don't get me wrong. It is a free country. You are allowed to tweet and criticize the Commander in Chief and Members of Congress all the time. That is fine. That is what America is. That is what democracy is. But that doesn't mean you get a free pass to be the No. 3 guy at the U.S. Department of Defense, which is what he wants.
So that is temperament, and I don't think it is a good temperament with which to lead the Pentagon at all.
Let's talk about judgment, especially policy judgment. The questions of temperament are often closely aligned with but they are not the same as judgment, particularly as it relates to policies. Judgment is being able to assess a situation, use history as a guide, and take appropriate action.
I think this nominee lacks judgment, which is something that was shown when he was then-Vice President Biden's National Security Advisor. Let me provide a few examples.
First, as many know, he was a staunch advocate for the Iran nuclear deal and, I believe, an advocate on being soft on Iran.
By the way, it is not always said in public, but a bipartisan majority of U.S. Senators and a bipartisan majority of Members of the House all opposed the Iran deal, but in my view, appeasing the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism, these terrorists--leaders with the blood of thousands of American troops on their hands--is not smart policy judgment.
Dr. Kahl doesn't seem to know when we can press the Iranians, and this is a really big issue. Every time someone tried to press them-- draw a redline, take aggressive action--he criticized it.
Dr. Kahl, in 2015, argued for sanctions relief on Iran, claiming that the vast majority of the relief would go to butter, not guns. Well, we know how that turned out. That money went to arming terrorists and the continuation of Iran's proxies around the Middle East and around the world who were committing terrorism.
Dr. Kahl said that pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal was ``a dangerous delusion.''
He said: The ``hawks in Congress''--and I think he meant that as an insult. By the way, I view that not as an insult, particularly after the Obama-Biden administration cut defense spending by 25 percent and drastically reduced readiness--who are supporting pulling out of the Iran deal ``won't be satisfied until they get the war they have pushed for decades.'' Really? I didn't want war with Iran. Those who opposed the JCPOA--again, a bipartisan majority of the U.S. Senators--didn't want a war with Iran. We just thought the JCPOA was misguided.
After the U.S. strike that killed Iranian terror commando Qasem Soleimani, Kahl tweeted the following:
Trump has started a war with Iran and Iraq.
Really? I think what the President and our fine military did when they killed General Soleimani was reestablish deterrence, which we had lost in the Middle East when this terrorist killed thousands and wounded thousands of U.S. service men and women and never had to pay consequences. We reestablished a redline and said: If you kill Americans, you are going to pay.
Guess what. That war never happened, although Kahl predicted it
Even Iran's Foreign Minister, Mohammad Zarif, acknowledged in these tapes that we have been talking about here on the Senate floor that the killing of Soleimani ``was when the United States delivered a major blow to Iran more damaging than if it had wiped out an entire city in an attack.'' That was from the Foreign Minister of Iran's knowing that what we did was very significant.
Dr. Kahl, if you look at his tweets, wouldn't have done that because he thought it would have ``brought the war that the hawks want.'' We didn't want a war, and we didn't get a war.
Just like John Kerry, who is now being accused of leaking secrets that Israel had--one of our most important allies--to Iran, the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism, I believe he is soft on Iran.
We are going to get to the bottom of the Kerry issue, by the way. It is alleged what he did, but if he did it, if he sold out Israel for Iran, he needs to resign and be fired. We are going to get to the bottom of that.
Let me mention one other issue. It is a sensitive one--I admit it-- but I think it is also an important one with Dr. Kahl.
At his confirmation hearing, he said that one of his priorities was to ``stamp out `systemic racism' within the ranks of the military.''
Now, look, I care about this issue, and every organization has bad people in it. I spoke on the Senate floor last year about some of these issues. I put forward legislation last year in the NDAA that looks at why we aren't having promotions of African Americans at higher ranks and at the highest ranks of the military. This is an issue I care about, but when he said this in his confirmation hearing--systemic racism within the ranks--I was very curious. Has he served in the ranks, maybe? No, he hasn't. I have for 26 years--still serving. Where did he get the information? That is a broad statement to make about our troops whom you want to lead.
During the hearing, Dr. Kahl admitted he had ``no credible evidence to back up that kind of statement.'' Well, that is a real lack of judgment.
You are besmirching a bunch--a big portion of the force, with no credible data to back it up, and you want to be the No. 3 leader in the Pentagon?
This is judgment, and this is one of the many reasons I am going to vote against him, and I hope that my colleagues do.
Let me end with one final thing. Dr. Kahl made a statement in his confirmation hearing about the requirements of the job:
The position of undersecretary of defense for policy, while it's a political appointment, is not a political job. It's a policy job, one that requires [whoever is in the position] to be nonpartisan.
Well, given his judgment, given his temperament, I don't believe Dr. Kahl has lived up to his own assessment of what is required to serve in the Pentagon's third most important defense role. I don't believe he has the qualifications for this position. There are plenty of good policy experts--Democrats, I am sure, who do--and I would encourage my colleagues to vote against this nomination for these reasons.
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