A congressionally chartered commission about U.S. strategic posture is stacked with nuclear-savvy appointees, including the woman who led the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) during most of the Donald Trump administration.
Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, administrator for NNSA under Trump, will get her direct line to Congress back as one of Sen. Jim Inhofe’s (R-Okla.) two nominees to the commission, which Congress created in the National Defense Act of 2022 to review the strategic posture of U.S. armed forces. Inhofe is the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Also returning to a position of influence is Leonor Tomero, an arms-control-minded nuclear policy lifer who was pushed out of the Pentagon in 2021 as part of a reorganization that critics called a cover story concocted by Senate staffers who disagreed with Tomero’s handling of the Joe Biden administration’s Nuclear Posture Review. Tomero will get her spot back thanks to her old boss Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) the chair of the Armed Services Committee that employed Tomero for about a decade.
The commission also includes Air Force Gen. John Hyten, a former commander of U.S. Strategic Command and recently retired vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Jon Kyl, one of the most hawkish, anti-arms control Senators ever to serve. Kyl, a Republican from Arizona, served in the Senate from 1995-2013.