Braxton Taylor
The Coast Guard’s acting commandant just ordered a “surge” of assets in response to Trump’s border-focused executive orders. Equipment and units include “cutters, aircraft, boats and deployable specialized forces” dispatched to certain “key areas,” Adm. Kevin Lunday said in a statement Tuesday. The statement did not further specify the assets or say what missions they were diverted from.
These new efforts will span:
- “The southeast U.S. border approaching Florida to deter and prevent a maritime mass migration from Haiti and/or Cuba;
- The maritime border around Alaska, Hawai’i, the U.S. territories of Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands;
- The maritime border between the Bahamas and south Florida;
- The southwest maritime border between the U.S. and Mexico in the Pacific.”
Lunday is also sending forces to the “maritime border between Texas and Mexico” in the Gulf of Mexico and to “maritime portions of the southwest U.S. border,” he said.
Related: “Unpacking Exec Order on National Emergency at the Southern Border,” Mark Nevitt, a former Navy attorney in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, wrote for Just Security on Tuesday.
ICYMI: Lunday has taken over after Trump’s Homeland Security officials fired Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan, who was the first woman to lead a U.S. military branch (even though the Coast Guard falls under DHS and not the Defense Department). We noted the development in Tuesday’s newsletter. Read more from GovExec’s Sean Michael Newhouse, reporting Tuesday as well.
Firing the Coast Guard Commandant “ahead of her scheduled departure is an abuse of power that slanders the good name and record of Admiral Fagan,” Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Connecticut, said in a statement Tuesday. Under Fagan, Courtney said the service “exceeded its 2024 recruitment goal for the first time since 2017; interdicted over $2.5 billion in illegal drugs from bad actors in 2024; and demonstrated an aggressive commitment to countering adversaries in the [Arctic] by championing the ICE Pact to speed up production of new icebreaker vessels, which the U.S. has not built in nearly 50 years.”
After her predecessor helped cover up the Coast Guard’s internal investigation into sexual assault cases known as Operation Fouled Anchor, “Admiral Fagan provided a fundamental change in Coast Guard leadership and has led the service with transparency and honesty to rebuild trust and correct the persistent sexual misconduct problems facing the service,” Courtney said.
Related reading:
- “An Anxious Federal Workforce Bids Goodbye to Job Stability and Remote Work,” the Wall Street Journal writes, noting, “In early executive actions, Trump moved to order government workers back to the office full-time and watered down job protections.”
- Similarly, “Government’s top career execs face new political oversight as Trump vows to get ‘rid of all the cancer’,” from GovExec.
- “Justice Dept. removes senior career officials from key positions,” the Washington Post reports. The officials, in DOJ’s national security and criminal divisions, have been reassigned elsewhere, where they can decide to stay or quit.
- The members of DHS’ cyber review board have been dismissed, Nextgov/FCW reports.
Developing: Trump’s executive order designating Mexican cartels as foreign terrorists could have unintended consequences, the New York Times reported Tuesday. For example, “The designation is so broad and vague that ranches in Texas or farms in California could be swept up by the penalties if their employees send remittances to family members in Mexico who are involved in organized crime.” Also, “Banks could ultimately decide to avoid entire sectors perceived as high risk.” That includes “Mexico’s avocado trade, where cartels have drastically expanded their operations.” More, here.
Welcome to this Wednesday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by 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 2009, President Barack Obama signed an executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba; U.S. lawmakers, however, stepped in and stopped the closure from happening.
Around the Defense Department
At least two more potentially damaging reports recently emerged about Trump’s nominee to lead the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth:
- “An ex-sister-in-law of Pete Hegseth’s submitted a sworn statement to senators on Tuesday that accused Mr. Hegseth, President Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, of being so ‘abusive’ toward his second wife that she once hid in a closet from him and had a safe word to call for help if she needed to get away from him,” the New York Times reported Tuesday.
- And Hegseth “regularly abused alcohol to the point that he passed out at family gatherings, and once needed to be dragged out of a strip club while in uniform, according to an ex-relative’s account of his behavior (PDF) that was given to U.S. lawmakers,” the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday as well.
Context: “The new allegations come a day after the armed services panel voted 14-13 along party lines to advance Hegseth’s nomination to lead the Defense Department,” with a vote in the full Senate expected sometime later this week, according to the Journal.
Explainer: Trump repeals protections for transgender service members. On Monday, President Donald Trump rescinded an executive order put in place during the early days of the Biden administration that broadened protections for trans people’s right to serve in the U.S. military. The repeal does not put anything into motion immediately, but it does remove a barrier to limiting trans people’s right to serve. Defense One’s Meghann Myers has more.
Trump wants a faster security clearance process, too, writes Lindy Kyzer of ClearanceJobs.com. But can he avoid politicizing it? On Day One, he stripped clearances from people he doesn’t like and created a temporary end-run for people he does. Read on, here.
Five far-right militia members who had their sentences commuted by Trump on Monday were military veterans, Military.com reported Tuesday.
Relatedly, “Some of the services still have troops sentenced for Jan. 6 crimes within their ranks, Military.com previously reported, and did not relay a unified plan on how to handle pardons for veterans or military personnel tied to the Capitol riot.”
Trendspotting: The GOP’s sudden silence on Capitol riot pardons. The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake explains.
Additional reading:
Trump made several false and misleading allegations during his first day in office, the Associated Press reported Tuesday. Those include false claims that China is operating the Panama Canal (it is not); that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “turned down the offer of 10,000 soldiers” on Jan. 6, 2021 (she did not); claims the 2020 “election was totally rigged” (it was not); and several others.
Trendspotting: “Trump has tapped 19 people to join his administration who have worked at Fox News,” the UK’s Times reported Tuesday.
Additional reading:
- “Trump made more than 20 false claims in his Inauguration Day remarks,” CNN’s Daniel Dale reported Monday;
- “’Be serious’, says Panama president on Trump ‘invasion’ question,” Reuters reported Wednesday from Davos, Switzerland;
- “Trump Frees Silk Road Creator Ross Ulbricht After 11 Years in Prison,” WIRED reported Tuesday;
- “VA secretary nominee rejects privatization but wants more employee firings,” GovExec reported Tuesday;
- “Trump administration directs all federal diversity, equity and inclusion staff be put on leave,” AP reported Tuesday;
- “Files detail bid to contain fallout from Tulsi Gabbard meetings with Assad,” the Washington Post reported Tuesday;
- “An Anxious Federal Workforce Bids Goodbye to Job Stability and Remote Work,” the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday;
- And “President Trump’s Attempt to ‘Save’ TikTok is a Power-Grab that Subverts Free Speech,” an attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute wrote Tuesday for Just Security.
Industry
Oracle, OpenAI announce $100B effort to build AI data centers. Ten of the half-million-square-foot centers are already under construction in Texas, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said at a White House press conference on Tuesday. Experts said the effort reflects a change in the AI race: that it’s more about raw computing power than clever algorithms, Defense One’s Patrick Tucker reports.
Additional reading:
Pacific region
And lastly: Two undersea cables connecting Taiwan and the outlying island Matsu have failed. Taipei has activated backups, and officials blamed “natural deterioration,” Reuters reports. When similar cables were severed in 2023, officials blamed Chinese-owned vessels but could not say whether the damage was deliberate.
Read the full article here