Anthony Tata, whose past Islamaphobic and conspiratorial statements doomed his nomination for a top Pentagon job in the first Trump administration, was grilled by senators on Tuesday in his bid to become the Pentagon's personnel chief in the second Trump administration.
During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on his nomination to be under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, Tata distanced himself from his past comments by saying they were "out of character." But he also defended more recent comments calling for purging military officers seen as disloyal to President Donald Trump and supporting using military force for law enforcement on U.S. soil.
If confirmed, Tata would oversee the health and well-being of the more than 3 million uniformed and civilian personnel working for the Defense Department. The under secretary for personnel is charged with advising the defense secretary and crafting policies on issues ranging from recruitment to child care to medical standards to pay and benefits.
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While Tata faced enough bipartisan opposition five years ago to sink his nomination for a different Pentagon job, Republicans, who can confirm Tata on their own, indicated Tuesday they've come around on him. But Democrats expressed grave concerns about his judgment, citing inflammatory social media posts.
In a post shortly after Trump's election in November, Tata said Trump should "review every 4 star appointed by (then-President Joe) Biden and thank many for their service before firing them." Tata was responding to a CNN report that said Pentagon officials were having informal conversations about how to respond if Trump were to issue an unlawful order.
The CNN article did not say four-stars were participating in the discussions, nor that military officers were considering defying legal orders, but Tata's social media post claimed that the lack of public condemnation from top generals shows that it is "under their leadership that these mutinous discussions are taking place."
Asked about the social media post Tuesday, Tata mischaracterized the CNN story as being about generals and admirals discussing disobeying lawful orders and argued the point of his post was to reinforce the Constitution.
"I was actually talking about defending the Constitution," Tata said. "The admirals and generals don't get to choose which lawful orders they follow. The admirals and generals work for the civilian leadership, and that civilian leadership is codified in Article 2 of our Constitution."
Tata later added that he "would not support any kind of blatant purge," but that "if an officer is not following the Constitution, has committed some kind of breach of his or her duty, then that should be investigated and the investigation should tell us what to do."
After several instances of Tata’s mischaracterizing the CNN report, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., read the article into the congressional record and told Tata that "I think you're missing the point."
"I respect and appreciate your military service, but your record of public statements and behavior toward individuals with whom you disagree politically is disqualifying for a position of this significance," Reed said in his opening statement.
Democrats also pressed Tata on a social media post from January where he encouraged Congress to "suspend posse comitatus" so that "elite and conventional forces" could patrol Trump's inauguration and "conduct direct action if necessary." Posse comitatus is the law that prohibits the military from conducting civilian law enforcement on U.S. soil in most cases.
Tata on Tuesday claimed that his reference to posse comitatus was in relation to U.S. border security despite the fact that the post was about the inauguration and included conspiratorial musings that elements of the National Guard, Defense Department and other agencies are "compromised at a minimum by hatred of the incoming administration."
Tata said he stood by "the idea that we need better border security," though he added he does "not know" if posse comitatus should be suspended. He also acknowledged that he had "no information" to support his allegations that members of the National Guard and Pentagon were compromised despite publicly saying so.
Tata is a retired Army brigadier general whose post-military career includes serving as a school district administrator in Washington, D.C., and North Carolina and as North Carolina's secretary of transportation, a job he abruptly resigned from.
More recently, he has been a steady presence on Fox News as a political and military commentator.
During the first Trump administration in 2020, he was nominated to be under secretary of defense for policy, essentially the No. 3 position in the Pentagon.
But his nomination was withdrawn after the Senate Armed Services Committee, also controlled by Republicans at the time, abruptly canceled his confirmation hearing amid a mounting controversy over incendiary past statements. After the nomination was withdrawn, Trump installed Tata as a Pentagon adviser who didn't need Senate confirmation and later appointed him acting under secretary for policy.
Among the statements that doomed Tata's previous nomination were social media posts that called former President Barack Obama a "terrorist leader," said California Democratic Reps. Maxine Waters and Nancy Pelosi "have always been the same violent extremists" and floated a conspiracy theory that former CIA Director John Brennan used a coded tweet to order Trump's assassination.
"Those were out-of-character comments," Tata said Tuesday, noting that he submitted an apology letter to the committee in 2020. "I regret making those comments."
While the apology letter was not enough to save his nomination back then, Republicans brushed off the past controversy on Tuesday.
"The thing I've learned about Tony is that he takes responsibility for his words and actions, he learns from his past mistakes, which is a testament of a good leader, and I think you'll see that on display today," Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said in introducing Tata at the hearing.
Tillis no longer sits on the Armed Services Committee, but he did in 2020, and he has been seen as a potential swing vote on some Trump nominees this year.
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