
The Senate Armed Services Committee is initiating a public exchange of letters with senior Trump administration officials regarding the Department of Energy’s fiscal 2021 nuclear-weapon budget request. It is one of the committee’s so-called “paper hearings,” invented to prevent public gatherings during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This session, which includes leadership from DoE and the Pentagon, is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. Thursday. The panel will at that time post opening statements from its leadership and witnesses online. At the same time,…