(Source : Defense One – Katie Bo Williams) – Here’s Who Will Be Running the Pentagon When Biden Takes Office

Dozens named in the most comprehensive roster published to date of who will be running DOD when the president-elect is sworn in. (…)

While news organizations have reported a number of these officials as being considered or expected to be Biden’s pick for the job, this is the most comprehensive list of who will be running the Pentagon when the president-elect is sworn in on Wednesday.

Because President-elect Joe Biden will be sworn into office on Wednesday without any of his chosen Pentagon officials confirmed by the Senate, his transition team has designated a slate of interim officials to fill those posts to ensure continuity of governance at the helm of the nation’s military. A handful of these officials are holdovers from the Trump administration, but the vast majority are career officials.

Some of those key officials have already been named — current Deputy Defense Secretary David Norquist will serve as the acting defense secretary — but many of the mid and lower-level roles have remained unknown.

The Biden administration will also, on Jan. 20, send dozens of political appointees into the building to begin work. Some will remain in appointed positions, while others may be under consideration for some of the higher level, Senate-confirmed roles.

These lists are based on internal Defense Department documents laying out the new administration’s staffing plans for Jan. 20. The documents are labeled as “pre-decisional,” but were being circulated inside the Pentagon as current as of Tuesday morning — the day before inauguration. A transition official emphasized that the documents were “simply a planning spreadsheet.”

“Not everyone on it has been officially secured into the positions indicated,” the official said. “It is very much a working document intended for accounting purposes.”

Read on, below, to see who is slated to fill these roles.

POLITICAL APPOINTEES
Here are the political appointees whom the incoming Biden administration has slated to fill some of top Defense Department jobs, starting Wed., Jan 20:

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, OASD(PA) John Kirby (…)
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (South and South East Asia), OUSD (Policy) Lindsey Ford (…)
Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict, OUSD (Policy) Sameer Punyani (…)
Deputy Assistant Secretary (China) Michael Chase
Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Chief, Acquisition, Technology and Logistics) Ian Staples (…)
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Western Hemisphere Affairs) Daniel Erickson (…)

ARMY
Secretary of the Army John Whitley (…)

NAVY
Secretary of the Navy Thomas Harker  (…)

AIR FORCE
Secretary of Air Force John Roth (…)

 

READ ARTICLE IN FULL >>> www.defenseone.com/policy/2021/01/list-heres-bidens-day-one-pentagon-team

Photo © Deputy Defense Secretary David Norquist is a possibility to serve as acting defense secretary in the incoming Biden administration, Sgt. Amber I. Smith,U.S. Defense Department, as published in >>> https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2021/01/14/heres-why-bidens-first-defense-secretary-may-be-a-trump-appointee/