Pentagon Tries to 'Mitigate' Holds by Sen. Tuberville

The Pentagon is taking steps to "mitigate the disruption" in the promotions and confirmations of more than 300 senior military officers because of the hold Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., has had in place for several weeks.

But Tuberville has denounced the Pentagon for imposing policy and attempting to circumvent Congress, like a "spoiled kid," saying lawmakers have a say in governance.

"They think I am going to break; I will not break," Tuberville told Newsmax's "John Bachman Now" amid the standoff with the Biden administration on the confirmations and promotions.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, in a recent memo, is denouncing Tuberville's "unprecedented, across-the-board hold is having a cascading effect, increasingly hindering the normal operations of this department and undermining both our military readiness and our national security," Austin wrote.

But Tuberville is digging in against a Biden administration which is playing "politics" with the military, including blocking Alabama from getting the Space Command headquarters, leaving it in Colorado.

"I'll tell you about a national security threat: We have a Space Command that is very new; we had a place for Space Command [headquarters] to go, which was in my state in Huntsville, Alabama," Tuberville said. "They put that on hold for three years now, and China is running away from us in space, and we don't have a place for Space Command.

"But they're telling me that 250 promotions is causing a readiness problem?"

"They are the ones that are ruining our military," he concluded, "because they are putting politics in it."

Now, the Pentagon is moving to circumvent Tuberville's congressional hold on promotions and confirmations, by moving them one at a time.

"We are currently facing an indefinite, blanket hold on the Senate confirmation of all U.S. military general and flag officers," Austin wrote in a memo to the three service secretaries, according to The Washington Examiner, which obtained a copy of the memo.

Austin's plan calls for current three- and four-star officers to be considered, on a "case-by-case basis" for retention in their current jobs, "taking into account any hardship that may result from remaining in place."

"The department must make every effort to limit the damage caused by this hold, including the disruption that it is causing our military families."

Tuberville has been holding up nominees to protest new Department of Defense policies that grant paid leave and reinsure travel expenses for service members who travel to a different state to obtain a legal abortion.

Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters the process for holding officers in place is "situation-dependent" on the officers' positions.

"Largely speaking, if it's a Senate-confirmed position, for example, three- to four-star, there would be a lot of situations where you would hold in place until you're confirmed unless there's permission to act in an acting capacity," Ryder said.

The memo said officers who would assume roles of heading organizations because of normal succession, "may assume the head role in an acting or temporary capacity, regardless of whether they have been or will be nominated for the head position," while officers in grades that are tied to nominations may not vacate their positions.

"In extraordinary cases, officers in a grade of [two-star] or below who are not in the normal line of succession may be assigned to head organizations in an acting capacity, provided they have not been or will not be nominated for the head position," the memo said.

Tuberville said his holds are not preventing anyone from being confirmed or inflicting financial hardship on military families.

"No military positions go unfilled as long as the hold is in place," his office said in a statement released in July. "Sen. Tuberville's hold does not prevent any nomination from being confirmed. Tuberville's hold forces the Senate to consider and vote on the nominations by regular order (i.e. a floor vote) instead of approving them in batches by unanimous consent."

The release added Tuberville's hold is "well within his rights as a senator," and said it is "not unprecedented, unlike the Pentagon's abortion policy."

Tuberville's office also said that his position "reflects the majority view of the American people that taxpayers should not fund abortion."

"Sen. Tuberville continues to rebuff hypocritical and inaccurate attacks from Democrats, reiterating why he believes the DOD's new policy that expands taxpayer-subsided abortions circumvents the role of Congress and blatantly violates the law," Tuberville's office said.