The Pentagon’s Elaine McCusker isn’t the problem — politics is

Reacting to the Trump administration’s withdrawal of Elaine McCusker’s nomination to become comptroller of the Department of Defense (DOD), a friend of mine emailed me: “I worked for her at CENTCOM when she was comptroller there. She was very good.” 

How true. Not only was she very good at the Central Command’s headquarters in Tampa, but she carried out a highly commendable job both as congressionally-confirmed principal deputy under secretary of Defense to then-Comptroller David Norquist, and then as Norquist’s acting replacement when he moved up to become the DOD’s deputy secretary. Indeed, she was respected by both Democratic and Republican comptrollers who preceded her in that office.

McCusker’s sin was that she had questioned the ability of the White House to hold up funds for military assistance to Ukraine. As has been widely reported, Michael Duffy, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) associate director for national security programs, emailed McCusker and others at DOD regarding the White House’s decision to put a hold on the assistance. Duffy, a political appointee, had written: “Given the sensitive nature of the request, I appreciate your keeping that information closely held to those who need to know to execute direction.” Further, he tried to present the decision as one made in the Pentagon rather than in the White House.

McCusker was incredulous. Unlike Duffy, who had relatively little budget experience, McCusker was a career budgeteer with intimate knowledge of both budget process and law. She wrote back: “You can’t be serious … I am speechless.” Her reply was her political death knell. It was only a matter of time before her nomination would be withdrawn.

Duffy is hardly the first senior OMB official responsible for defense budgets to interfere with DOD program and budget processes. Some of his predecessors worked closely with the DOD — for example, Dr. William Schneider in the Reagan administration — while others worked overtime to micromanage the department. Invariably, DOD comptrollers (myself included) resisted OMB’s predations. Sometimes we succeeded in keeping the OMB wolves at bay; other times we did not. But McCusker appears to be the first of my successors — or, for that matter, my predecessors — to lose her job simply because she was doing it.

There is a rumor circulating in the defense community that the president sought McCusker’s ouster, even as principal deputy, but relented in the face of protests by the department’s leadership. According to what is colloquially termed “rumint” (or “rumor intelligence”), top DOD officials argued that, in the absence of a principal deputy — since McCusker had moved up to be acting comptroller — her departure would leave a void that would be exceedingly difficult to fill in the midst of the current budget season. Hopefully, there is truth that these pleas have succeeded in permitting her to retain her critical position in the Defense Department, at least for the moment.

The president’s vendetta against real or perceived enemies in the bureaucracy evidently continues apace. It is one thing, however, to dismiss appointees who have deputies to replace them. Moreover, it is generally easier to find replacements for those in purely policy-making positions; Washington in particular is filled with a bevy of think-tankers who would give their right arms to take any top policy jobs that become vacant. 

But defense budgeting is highly technical, even an arcane pursuit. To manage the department’s massive budgets and programs requires years, even decades, of hands-on experience. That the president sought to remove a talented budgeteer is a reflection of his ignorance of what her job entails. That she remains on the job, at least for the time being, is a reflection of the DOD leadership’s understanding of the position’s crucial importance to the defense of the nation. Indeed, it is testimony to her fortitude, too; having been rejected for the job she currently holds in an acting capacity, she might well have resigned. That she has not done so demonstrates her personal commitment to both the military and the DOD civilians whose budgets she oversees. 

Dov S. Zakheim is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and vice chairman of the board for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He was under secretary of Defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2004 and a deputy under secretary of Defense from 1985 to 1987.