The House Armed Services Committee on Thursday passed the waiver required for retired Gen. James Mattis to serve as defense secretary, despite objections from Democrats that the former general was not allowed to testify at their committee.
The 34-28 vote in committee saw all Democrats vote against the exception to the law requiring officers to be out of uniform for seven years before serving as defense secretary. The waiver already passed the Senate and is expected to pass the House on Friday.
Democrats overwhelmingly slammed Trump’s transition team for making the House Armed Services Committee “irrelevant,” although displeasure with the incoming administration for preventing their pick to be defense secretary from testifying extended to both sides of the aisle.
Mattis had agreed to testify before the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday afternoon about the waiver required for him to serve so soon after his retirement from the Marine Corps. But the transition team refused to allow him to speak there, saying that he instead was focusing on his Senate testimony on Thursday morning.
Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., and ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, said the committee should have held out and refused to vote on the waiver until Trump’s team let Mattis speak at the committee.
“In a critically, critically important matter … the incoming president’s team has decided that the House Armed Services Committee is irrelevant,” Smith said in his opening statement. “By abdicating our authority, I think we’ve made a huge mistake.”
He, as well as several other Democratic members of the committee, said they would oppose the waiver because Mattis is not speaking to the committee.
Current law requires a former military officer to be out of uniform for at least seven years before serving as defense secretary to preserve civilian control of the military. Because Mattis retired in 2013, Congress will need to change the law for him to serve.
Lawmakers stressed that their opposition was not a slight to Mattis’ experience or qualifications to serve as the Pentagon’s top civilian. Instead, it was a concern about changing a 70-year-old law without the opportunity to question the former general.
They also said the transition’s refusal to allow Mattis to testify begins the relationship between Trump and Congress on the wrong foot.
Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, and chairman of the House committee, called it a “mistake” that Mattis was not allowed to testify.
“I have complete confidence that General Mattis would have answered our questions in a way that adds confidence to the wisdom of his selection,” Thornberry said. “It would have added strength to his position and gotten the partnership between him and our committee off to a good start. He recognized those advantages immediately. Unfortunately, short-sightedness prevailed.”
The law has been changed one only other time, for former Secretary George Marshall in 1950. Thornberry noted that Marshall did not testify at either committee before Congress approved the exception for him.
