Pete Hegseth, the current Defense Secretary, has just dropped a bombshell by essentially banning top military officials, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, from speaking with Congress unless they get permission through a centralized office that reports directly to him. In a move that feels like it’s straight out of an executive playbook on stonewalling, Hegseth and his deputy, Steve Feinberg, announced this wild change in an internal memo dated October 15.
Interactions between federal agencies and congressional offices are supposed to be as common as the sunrise. Lawmakers rely on this information to actually do their jobs and provide oversight to departments like the Pentagon. That’s literally how our system is designed to work. Yet, the Trump regime seems to think the rulebook is purely optional when it comes to keeping Congress, or anyone else, in the loop, per MSNBC.
