House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., rebuked the Pentagon for failing to provide “full transparency” to the panel regarding the Pentagon’s plans to provide additional support to the southern border.
“The number one thing that the House Armed Services Committee wants from the Defense Department this Congress is transparency,” Smith said in a statement Thursday. “We did not get full transparency during this week’s hearing about DOD support to the southern border.”
In a letter to acting Secretary of Defense Pat Shanahan, Smith pressed for details on why John Rood, undersecretary of defense for policy, did not provide information regarding an increase in troops to the southern border before the committee on Tuesday. That same day, Shanahan told reporters that “several thousand” troops would be deployed to the southern border, per a request from the Department of Homeland Security, although he did not disclose a specific number.
But Smith, who had a phone call with Shanahan about the hearing, revealed Thursday that 3,500 troops will be heading to the border — a disclosure that he argued should have been shared with members of the committee earlier this week.
“The Members of the Committee would have been extremely interested in discussing what the 3,500 troops going to the border in response to DHS’s latest request will be doing there,” Smith said in a statement Thursday. “This is a violation of the executive branch’s obligation to be transparent with Congress, which oversees, authorizes, and funds its operations. It also raises questions about whether the Department thinks the policy of sending additional troops to the border is so unjustified that they cannot defend an increase in public.”
Smith said that although he appreciated the additional information Shanahan shared during the phone call, it was “not a substitute for transparency before Congress and public candor.”
“Does their refusal to publicly discuss what they are doing indicate that this is a policy they believe they cannot defend in an open public hearing before the full Armed Services Committee, where all 57 members have the opportunity to ask questions?” Smith said.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Washington Examiner.
Approximately 2,300 active duty troops are at the southern border, a decrease from the nearly 6,000 that were sent there in November. Shanahan emphasized to reporters earlier this week that the troops are supporting civilian authorities, not “undertaking a law enforcement position.”
Smith has historically been critical of deploying active duty military personnel to the southern border, and he said Tuesday deployments are only justified “where they make sense.”
