The Senate voted Monday night to approve President Trump’s pick for assistant secretary for homeland defense and global security at the Pentagon.
Kenneth Rapuano, a senior vice president at the ANSER research institute, was a deputy homeland security adviser in the Bush administration and served 21 years in the Marine Corps as an infantry and intelligence officer. He has also held adviser positions in the defense and energy departments, according to his online bio.
The 95-1 vote makes Rapuano the sixth Trump Pentagon appointee approved by the Senate after the administration’s slow start filling key jobs in the building.
Six appointees, out of the 57 posts that must pass the Senate, have been approved so far including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, and comptroller David Norquist, the brother of GOP activist Grover Norquist.
Rapuano is an old hand in the D.C. national security establishment, with experience in homeland security and defense within the federal government, the private sector and academia.
He was a security adviser to an assistant secretary of defense and to the secretary of energy, spent seven years at the MITRE Corporation, and is a distinguished research fellow at National Defense University.
With Rapuano’s confirmation in the bag, the White House now has five other Pentagon nominees pending on the Hill, including Patrick Shanahan for deputy secretary, Richard V. Spencer to be Navy secretary, Ryan McCarthy to be Army undersecretary, and Charles Stimson for Navy general counsel.
Those nominees must have hearings in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee, then pass a chamber floor vote.
Trump has not announced a new nominee for Army secretary, one of the most important remaining open positions at the Pentagon, after his first two picks withdrew from consideration.
