Pentagon pick could have deep influence on Trump

Senate Armed Services Committee member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) is a leading contender to be Defense Secretary in the Trump administration. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) President-elect Donald Trump has made inflammatory comments about some of the nation’s current or possible defense policies. He has hinted at a close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, supported use of nuclear weapons, called NATO “obsolete” and claimed long-time allies like Japan and South Korea should be able to defend themselves without U.S. troops. In response to foreign leaders’ growing concerns about the new administration, President Barack Obama said on Monday that Trump will honor NATO and the alliance’s “core strategic relationships.” But many in the U.S. and abroad will look for clues as to what Trump really intends when he names his choice to lead the Department of Defense. Trump has made contradictory comments about defense spending over the last few months, saying “We can do it for a lot less“ last year but calling for eliminating the sequester on defense spending earlier this year. Whoever lands on the top defense post would have a lot to say about the direction of military spending. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.): The president-elect’s biggest congressional surrogate is a top contender to lead the uniformed and civilian employees of DoD. Sessions is a member of the Armed Services Committee and a strong supporter of Trump’s strict immigration policies, but he’s also known as an enthusiast of budget cutting, including defense spending. The senior senator from his state has received contributions totaling $18.6 million since 1996. His top supporter is a gas and electric utility company, Southern Company; its employees and PAC have given him a total of $174,765, but some other big donors include military suppliers such as Collazo Enterprises and Lockheed Martin. Political action committees and individuals in the defense sector have donated a total of $857,577 to Sessions. Sessions’ campaign committee and leadership PAC have given a total of $2.7 million to other GOP candidates and party committees over the past 10 cycles, but he did not give to Trump. Sessions’ name has also surfaced as a possible candidate to be attorney general or Homeland Security secretary. Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.): The junior New Hampshire senator didn’t survive one of the fiercest and most expensive congressional bids of the cycle last week, but she could have an office waiting at the Pentagon. The former attorney general of New Hampshire and chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee has been a leading hawkish voice in the upper chamber. She supports stricter sanctions on Iran and North Korea, and has also written a censuring op-ed about Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbass for The Hill. It seems fitting, then, that the single biggest contributor throughout her career as a federal politician is a leading pro-Israel group, NorPAC, which has donated a total of $255,000 to Ayotte, over half of the $507,470 she has received from various pro-Israel groups. Ayotte has also been named a potential ambassador to the United Nations. […]

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