Derek Chollet, the State Department’s current counselor, will start his new Pentagon role in July, replacing current chief of staff Kelly Magsamen, who will leave this month, the Defense Department announced Monday.
An adviser to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Chollet has played a key diplomatic role in the Biden administration’s response to the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
The choice, first reported by The Washington Post, comes as the Biden administration looks to shore up defense priorities ahead of the November election.
“He is one of the most distinguished, far-sighted, and skillful national-security practitioners of his generation, and I am grateful to him for taking on this key assignment at such an important moment,” Austin said of Chollet in a statement.
Blinken, meanwhile, described Chollet as providing “wise counsel and steady hand” as a leading diplomatic figure over the past nine months since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.
Chollet has also taken leading roles on U.S. policy in Asia, the civil war in Myanmar, ties with Europe pushing back against Russia’s war in Ukraine and amid dialogues in the Balkans.
But not everyone is happy with the nomination.
Last year, when the White House nominated Chollet to be the Pentagon’s top policy official, his path was bogged down by Senate Republicans who vowed to oppose the pick due to the Pentagon’s abortion policy as well as Chollet’s role in the Biden administration’s panned 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul, (R-Texas), was quick to call out the administration for tapping Chollet for this latest position, calling him “absolutely unqualified” and an “ill-advised decision.”
“With the many national security threats this country is facing, we need real leadership at the Defense Department — and Derek Chollet is not that,” McCaul said in a statement to Politico. “I strongly urge the secretary to reconsider this move.”
Read the full report at TheHill.com.
