DOD weapons buyer nominee wants to focus on new tech

Michael Duffey, the Trump administration’s nominee for undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, told senators during his confirmation hearing that he plans to evaluate “barriers that are preventing new entrants and private capital from entering the defense industrial base.”

“I think there are two really critical metrics when it comes to measuring the success of our acquisition system. One is speed, and the second is capacity. Nobody beats us on performance and capability, but we need to accelerate speed and need to manage cost,” said Duffey, who has been serving as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s deputy chief of staff since January.

Acquisition reform efforts, along with the desire to bring new companies into the defense industrial base, have spanned decades, though the push to buy technologies more quickly has intensified in the early weeks of the second Trump administration. Earlier this month, Hegseth directed contracting officers to use rapid buying authorities as the default method for software programs—a move met with a mix of cautious optimism and angst. 

“We always have to look at how we're operating, how we're executing as technology changes, as different threats change, we have to be flexible and adaptable enough. We have made, I believe, significant improvements in how we are acquiring systems,” Duffey said during his testimony. “But we still have a long way to go.”

Can’t escape Signalgate

Duffey’s testimony went fairly smoothly, but the hearing turned tense when Democratic senators peppered him and other defense nominees—Keith Bass for assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, Emil Michael for undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, and Troy Meink for Air Force secretary—with questions about security protocols and the Signal group chat where several high-level Trump administration officials, including Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance, shared military operations details in a commercially available, encrypted chat group that included a journalist. 

Thursday’s hearing was the first the Senate Armed Services Committee has held since the news broke Monday. 

Duffey’s nomination has drawn criticism from Democrats, who pointed out his involvement in ordering the halt of military aid to Ukraine when he was the White House’s associate director at the Office of Management and Budget in 2019. 

Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, questioned all the nominees about whether they understand protocols for handling sensitive information, and then asked whether they’ve ever disclosed classified information on an unclassified device. Everyone answered no. 

“I'm glad that all of you have answered no, because that's pretty obvious, if you admitted that you did not follow the law, that you will be admitting to committing a federal crime,” she said, before echoing calls for an investigation into the matter.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., continued that line of questioning, only asking Duffey whether he would cooperate with a potential DOD inspector general investigation into the Signal chat and possible security breach. 

Duffey quickly responded: “Senator, I was not a part of the chat that’s in question. I defer to others on the investigation, and you know, I will continue, as I have in the past, always, to communicate through approved channels with sensitive information.” 

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., called the questions “faux outrage” masked as national security concerns, and denied that “war plans” were discussed in the Signal chat. 

Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., had a more nuanced opinion. 

“I have planned and conducted strikes off of aircraft carriers…and I would agree with the senator from Missouri—this is not an entire war plan. What this is is an operational plan for very risky combat operations off of an aircraft carrier. And it's not all the information, but the most critical information that we have in our government are things like launch time off of a platform, in this case of an aircraft carrier, type of airplane—F-18s, MQ-9s—weapons like Tomahawks, time on target. It is very critical information,” he said. 

“Somebody could argue that the piece of paper, it came off of the Signal chat, it did not say ‘secret’ or ‘top secret.’ When you have pilots that are about to go feet dry over a foreign nation within an hour or two hours, and that information is being shared on a non-secure system, it puts those pilots at great risk. I agree it is not all the information, but some of the most critical information that you would not want to be released is what is in that Signal chain.” ]]>