EXCLUSIVE — A senior Biden administration Pentagon official responsible for military readiness asked the White House for opportunities to help promote Transgender Day of Visibility and Pride Month in 2023 as the armed forces struggled with a historic recruiting shortfall, according to emails shared with the Washington Examiner.
Shawn G. Skelly, then the assistant secretary of defense for readiness, wrote White House staffer Hannah Bristol on March 1, 2023, saying Skelly wanted to support the administration’s efforts on behalf of the LGBT community. The emails were shared with the Washington Examiner by the Center for Advancing Security in America, a conservative watchdog group, which filed a Freedom of Information Act request on April 11, 2024, and sued the then-Defense Department in August that year after the group said it had not received the requested records.
