Can Mark Esper save DoD? Senators sure hope so.

From the Military Times website

Lawmakers also expressed concern about 14 top Pentagon jobs that are still without a confirmed official, including currently the secretary and deputy secretaries of defense.

For the second week in a row, a lifetime public servant tapped for one of the Pentagon’s top jobs declared he would sooner resign from the job than follow an order he finds “illegal, immoral or unethical,” at a time when lawmakers are concerned that President Trump’s foreign policy moves are a threat to national security.

In a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday, Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., asked Army Secretary Mark Esper: Should he be confirmed as the next secretary of defense, would he align his foreign policy views more closely with former Defense Secretary James Mattis or President Trump ― as a rift between the two ultimately led to Mattis’s resignation late last year.

“I don’t know where to pick between the two,” Esper said. “But clearly, I share Secretary Mattis’s views, and I’ve expressed that publicly.”

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