The D Brief: Trump’s DNI, AG picks; China’s improved bomber; USAF adds CCAs; Boosting US arms production; And a bit more.

Trump’s cabinet of loyalists, cont.

Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence. A former Army Reserve lieutenant colonel, Tulsi Gabbard served as a Democratic U.S. representative from Hawaii for eight years, during which she criticized then-President Donald Trump for his approach to the Middle East and other matters. She ran for president, withdrew, and endorsed Joe Biden. But she subsequently switched to the Republican Party, denouncing her former colleagues as an “elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness,” and endorsed Donald Trump for a second presidential term. On Wednesday, the president-elect announced that he intends to nominate her to lead the nation’s intelligence community.

Gabbard, 43, has no direct experience in intelligence work, nor in running large organizations, and has held no senior government roles. She served two years on the House Committee on Homeland Security. She has been noted for speeches and social-media posts that align with Russian propaganda and espouse conspiracy theories.

Also: Gaetz for AG. Trump on Wednesday also nominated Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz to be Attorney General. Gaetz, 42, is a relatively young but seasoned GOP operative, and the son of a prominent Florida politician Don Gaetz, who is likewise the son of former North Dakota Republican Jerry Gaetz. 

Rep. Matt Gaetz’s Florida district spans the state’s western panhandle, which includes the seaport of Pensacola. Gaetz has represented Florida’s first congressional district since 2017. He’s since risen among Republicans as a particularly rancorous lawmaker—the New York Times describes him as a “right-wing provocateur”—so much so that former GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy blamed for costing him his speakership role in October 2023. 

Another thing: As the Pensacola News Journal reminded readers, Gaetz is “the subject of an ongoing Conservative-led House Ethics Committee investigation regarding sexual misconduct allegations” as well as alleged illicit drug use. The Times reports that the investigative work concluded in 2023, but the findings were never released publicly. Gaetz’s nomination Wednesday came just two days before the House Ethics Committee was set to vote on making that report public, Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News reported Wednesday evening. Shortly Trump nominated Gaetz, House Speaker Mike Johnson announced that the congressman had resigned—which means the House Ethics Committee no longer has jurisdiction over his actions, effectively ending the investigations. 

According to Trump, “Matt is a deeply gifted and tenacious attorney, trained at the William & Mary College of Law, who has distinguished himself in Congress through his focus on achieving desperately needed reform at the Department of Justice.” 

“Few issues in America are more important than ending the partisan Weaponization of our Justice System,” Trump wrote in a statement Wednesday. “Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department.” 

For what it’s worth: “Gaetz is married to Ginger Luckey, the sister of Oculus V.R. founder Palmer Luckey,” the Pensacola News Journal reports. Palmer Luckey founded the defense startup Anduril, which has been working hard lately to diversify its drone offerings for Pentagon contracts, as Defense One has covered extensively.

The idea of Gaetz as AG came up “just hours before it was announced,” Politico reports. “It was hatched aboard Trump’s airplane en route to Washington, on which Gaetz was a passenger,” according to Playbook, which poses four related questions about the nomination, including, “Can Gaetz actually get the Senate votes to be confirmed?” It’s obviously too soon to know; but “Republicans will have a three-seat majority” in the Senate, “so if four senators bounce, it’s a wrap” and Gaetz won’t be confirmed. But that’s a long way off right now. 

Additional reading: 

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Welcome to this Thursday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson and Bradley Peniston. Share your newsletter tips, reading recommendations, or feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1965, U.S. and North Vietnamese forces met in their first major battle. Reporter Joseph Galloway, who documented the Ia Drang action in We Were Soldiers Once…and Young, later called it “the battle that convinced Ho Chi Minh he could win.”

Ukraine developments

Update: The U.S. defense industrial base is now cranking out 50,000 or so 155mm artillery rounds each month, and will allegedly be able to double that rate sometime next year, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante said at an event hosted by Axios Wednesday in Washington. 

Similar advances could be made in the Patriot missile defense interceptor production line, he argued. His advice: Appropriate more for production in the U.S. industrial base. “We still have situations where, at the end of the budget, to balance the budget people lower production numbers, because that’s where the money is. We have to stop that,” LaPlante said. 

Ukraine’s big problem: Not enough troops. Dara Massicot of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace unpacked why in a social media thread Wednesday following her recent trip to Ukraine. 

One crazy rumor now circulating from Ukraine: That Kyiv “could develop a rudimentary nuclear bomb within months if Donald Trump withdraws US military assistance,” the UK Times reported Wednesday citing “a briefing paper prepared for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence.”

Expert reax: “No, it probably can’t. At least not anytime soon,” Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of Strategic Studies explained Wednesday on social media, using history, physics, and unclassified documents. 

Around the services

Air Force is buying more robot wingmen to experiment with. “One thing that I recently did was approve some additional CCA purchases to equip the experimental operations unit in order to enable that experimentation to happen using real assets,” Andrew Hunter, the service’s acquisition chief, said Wednesday at our State of Defense Business event. 

Hunter: The service will buy additional prototypes from General Atomics and Anduril—the two vendors building “increment one” collaborative combat aircraft—for the unit at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, that is experimenting with ways to pair the uncrewed craft with fighter jets. He did not say how many drones the service will buy or when they will arrive. Defense One’s Audrey Decker has more, here.

U.S. bases may use private 5G networks—with caveats. A Pentagon strategy signed in October and publicly released on Tuesday, outlined the operational requirements that must be met for DOD bases to embrace private networks instead of commercial high-speed solutions. Nextgov’s Edward Graham reports.

Orbital watch: “Starfish Space raises $29M to launch satellite-servicing spacecraft missions,” from TechCrunch.

China

Upgraded Cold War bomber increases China’s striking range. When the People’s Liberation Army sent air and naval forces around Taiwan in a massive October wargame, it showed off new versions of the H-6, a decades-old bomber newly outfitted to launch nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles, long-range anti-ship missiles, and land attack missiles, Reuters reports. Read on, here.

Etc.

A CIA employee was arrested Tuesday in Cambodia on charges he leaked classified Israeli military plans regarding an attack against Iran, the New York Times reported. His name is Asif William Rahman, and he was indicted in a federal court last week on two counts he willfully transmitted classified information. 

According to AP, “The charges stem from the documents, attributed to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, appearing last month on a channel of the Telegram messaging app. The documents noted that Israel was still moving military assets in place to conduct a military strike in response to Iran’s blistering ballistic missile attack on Oct. 1.” Reuters has more.

Update: Pentagon leaker Jack Teixeira gets 15 years in prison. The former Massachusetts Air National Guard member was sentenced on Tuesday for leaking online highly classified U.S. military documents. Reuters: “Teixeira, 22, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston after pleading guilty in March to perpetrating what federal prosecutors have called “one of the most significant and consequential violations” of U.S. anti-espionage law, opens new tab ever committed. He apologized in court for his actions.”

Defense One