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| US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter |
By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.
WASHINGTON: There’s still no sign of Donald Trump’s transition team at the Pentagon yet, but they’ll probably come this week, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said this morning. In the meantime, the secretary is walking a tightrope trying to defend his policies on the Islamic State, NATO, and Russia without explicitly disagreeing with a President-elect who hammered them in the elections. It’s a tightrope Carter can’t get off until Inauguration Day, more than two months from now.
“I am committed to an orderly transition to our new commander-in-chief, President-Elect Trump,” Carter told DC techies at the incubator 1776, and you could feel many in the largely liberal audience flinch at those last three words. “We have procedures in place… settled upon weeks ago,” Carter said. “The transition team hasn’t arrived at the Pentagon yet… They’re expected, I think, sometime this week, but that’s up to them.”
“This has been going on for 240 years, I myself have witnessed transitions in the past,” Carter said, downplaying the exceptional nature of this election. ” I am extremely proud (that) all of our senior leadership have adhered to our tradition to stand apart from the political process… That’s extremely important.”
Read the full story at Breaking Defense