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SALT LAKE CITY — Promotions for several hundred military leaders have been on hold for months, and Pentagon leaders have criticized the Republican senator behind the blockade, saying his actions are jeopardizing national security.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, has consistently been on the side of his Senate colleague, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, who has been blocking roughly 300 promotions in opposition to a Department of Defense policy that allows service members to be reimbursed for travel expenses if they travel out of state to access abortion care in a state where it is legal.
The policy was announced on Feb. 16, in a news release stating that service members "do not control where they are stationed," and may not have access to reproductive health care in certain states following the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Tuberville serves on the Senate Committee on Armed Services, and has opposed "unanimous consent" on the issue which would allow the Senate to approve the nominees in batches. While senators could still try to approve the nominations and promotions one at a time, that process would take two to three days for each nomination, according to NPR, rather than the relatively quick approval process under unanimous consent.
The secretaries of the Navy, Army and Air Force penned an op-ed in the Washington Post this week asking Tuberville to allow the nominations to move forward.
"Senators have many legislative and oversight tools to show their opposition to a specific policy," they wrote. "They are free to introduce legislation, gather support for that legislation and pass it. But placing a blanket hold on all general and flag officer nominees, who as apolitical officials have traditionally been exempt from the hold process, is unfair to these military leaders and their families."
It's also putting national security at risk, they said, because three of the five military branches — the Army, Navy and Marine Corps — have no Senate-confirmed chief in place and are being led by acting officials who lack full authority. The Marine Corps is without a permanent Marine commandant for the first time since 1911, the Associated Press reported.
"For someone who was born in a communist country, I would have never imagined that actually one of our own senators would actually be aiding and abetting communists and other autocratic regimes around the world," Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro told CNN.
Lee spoke against the Pentagon policy and rebuked Del Toro for his comments in a speech on the Senate floor Thursday.
"Americans overwhelmingly agree, with a vast supermajority in agreement, that the federal government should not use U.S. taxpayer funds for abortion," he said. "To that end, Congress has passed laws providing just that."
He pointed to 10 U.S. Code § 1093, which states that Department of Defense funds "may not be used to perform abortions except where the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term or in a case in which the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest."
The Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel issued a memo in October saying that the policy is legal, because 1093 only prohibits the Department of Defense from paying for the procedure. The language in 1093 "does not prohibit the use of funds to pay expenses, such as a per diem or travel expenses, that are incidental to the abortion," the memo states.
After his floor speech Thursday, Lee also lashed out at the Pentagon on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
"What other institution on planet Earth receives nearly $1 trillion every single year — with relatively few questions asked — and then shows utter contempt for those providing the funding?" he said. "I love our military — meaning our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and guardians, all of whom stand ready to lay down their lives for the American people. But I'm often repulsed by the top-level leadership at the Pentagon, which seems more focused on wokeness than warfare."
"What kind of Pentagon (1) makes a soldier pay her own way to attend her mother's funeral, requiring her to use her own, scarce leave time (if she even has any), but then (2) generously funds abortion travel & provides three weeks of paid leave for any soldier wanting an abortion?" he said in a separate post.
Lee also accused Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin of politically weaponizing the Pentagon and using "bullying tactics" against Tuberville. He called on Austin to "stop now, or resign."
"When Pentagon leaders stop fighting America's enemies, and instead fight Americans, waging war on American babies, it's time to cut Pentagon funding," he said.
Lee has previously questioned the Pentagon over service members who were discharged for refusing to receive a COVID-19 vaccine and for cutting off the pay of a Navy lieutenant while he serves a three-year prison sentence in Japan.
