Kirsten Gillibrand: “I rise to strongly oppose this legislation concerning a waiver for General Mattis. I know that all of my colleagues on…”

“I rise to strongly oppose this legislation concerning a waiver for General Mattis. I know that all of my colleagues on the Armed Services Committee who just left the hearing on this very topic with General Mattis and this entire body take the oversight role of our committee very seriously. We take civilian control of the military as a fundamental constitutional principle of the Founding Fathers. Even George Washington put aside his commission 5 years before he became our Commander in Chief and became the President of the United States. When Congress in 1947 debated the National Security Act to create the Department of Defense and create the Secretary of Defense, they decided to imbue this idea of civilian control into the Secretary of Defense by law, by mandating that he had to be separated from the military at least 10 years before taking on the role of Secretary of Defense, enshrining again this notion that civilian control is so important to our democracy and our American values. On Tuesday, the Armed Services Committee had a very compelling hearing. We had two experts testify about the reasons for civilian control and why they are still so important today. The importance of having a Secretary of Defense who brings a civilian perspective to this position and brings with him or her a breadth of views and experience-- those views coming from a civilian are very important.…”