Hegseth orders prior approval for ‘all interactions’ between military officials and Congress

By Haley Britzky, CNN

(CNN) — The Pentagon is barring nearly all Defense Department personnel, including military commanders, from talking to Congress or state lawmakers unless they have received prior approval from the agency’s office of legislative affairs, according to a memo signed this month by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and obtained by CNN.

“Unauthorized engagements with Congress by [Defense Department] personnel acting in their official capacity, no matter how well-intentioned, may undermine Department-wide priorities critical to achieving our legislative objectives,” says the memo, which was obtained by CNN.

The directive applies to the civilian leaders of each military branch, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all combatant commanders and Defense Intelligence offices. The memo, dated October 15, does carve out an exception for the Pentagon Inspector General office, the agency’s internal watch dog.

Breaking Defense first reported the details of the policy.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told CNN that the memo is “a pragmatic step to internally review the Department’s processes for communicating with Congress.”

“The Department intends to improve accuracy and responsiveness in communicating with the Congress to facilitate increased transparency,” Parnell said. “This review is for processes internal to the Department and does not change how or from whom Congress receives information.”

The memo is the latest in a series of steps by Hegseth to control information at the Pentagon and how the Pentagon communicates with those outside the agency. Hegseth, whose tenure has been beleaguered by leaks, has also moved to restrict engagement by Defense Department personnel with think tanks or other outside events and conferences. The memo was signed the same day that dozens of reporters turned in their badges rather than sign a document the Pentagon had produced that included restrictions on their work.

A senior Pentagon official told CNN that the memo is consistent with longstanding Defense Department policy that has not been enforced in the past. A 2006-era directive states that all legislative activities “shall be centrally directed and carefully coordinated with the [assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs] prior to execution,” and that the assistant secretary would have “overall supervision” of legislative affairs for the department.

And while the memo says explicitly that engagements must be coordinated or approved with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Legislative Affairs), the senior official said some engagements can also be approved by the military services’ legislative offices instead of pushing them all the way up to the Pentagon’s legislative affairs office.

A defense official also said they understood the memo to be primarily geared towards senior officials who go to the Hill to speak with lawmakers and may not have previously coordinated with legislative affairs staff, not lower-level legislative affairs staff who will still be authorized to speak with their congressional counterparts.

The memo says the Pentagon “relies on a collaborative and close partnership with Congress to achieve our legislative goals,” which requires “coordination of alignment of Department messaging.”

CNN previously reported that Congress has had limited engagement with Hegseth to the frustration of lawmakers and staffers; a Senate aide told CNN there has been “significantly less” communication than what lawmakers expect.

In some ways the memo is reminiscent of efforts by other administrations to control engagement with Congress, the Senate aide told CNN. For past administrations that has been in the form of a temporary pause in interactions or review.

The aide said, the memo fits “a disturbing pattern of attempting to stifle communication with Congress and the public that is unique and characteristic to Pete Hegseth,” but that in practice it could be less restrictive than the language initially appears.

“There is so much required and frankly beneficial interaction between Congress and the Department … There are very responsible and professional people who are doing their jobs and liaising with Congress, and 99% of it is business as usual,” the aide said. “I think this is a bad misunderstanding and frankly just another example of their paranoia to try to clamp down in this way.”

The senior Pentagon official said the memo is not meant to be restrictive, but an effort to coordinate the Pentagon’s messaging to Congress to avoid mistakes like officials contradicting themselves to Congress.

“When we go and we don’t coordinate our messaging, we run the risk of being in direct conflict with our budget request and our proposals on behalf of the Department,” the official said.

There has also been frustration with officials who are not in legislative affairs responding to questions from lawmakers or staffers on Capitol Hill, who are “answering on behalf of the Department and they’re not coordinating their messaging,” the senior official said.

A former senior Pentagon official pointed to the logistical challenges of doing what the memo says is required, telling CNN that the Defense Department does thousands of engagements with Congress and state officials a month, talking with staffers regularly on everything from personnel and military installation issues to operational details. It would be logistically challenging to get prior approval and coordination for every one of those engagements.

The memo says that the assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs, Dane Hughes, will conduct a review of all congressional affairs activities and submit a report to Hegseth detailing how to streamline activities, current issues with the congressional engagement process and more.

Hughes said in a memo signed October 17 that he would be convening a working group as part of his review and directed senior leaders and combatant commanders to provide a senior official from their office who oversees legislative functions to participate.

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