The Defense Department revealed on Thursday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered a complete overhaul of a Pentagon think container that notably gave attractive contracts to a key player in the Russia collusion fake.
The Secretary of Defense has ordered the establishment of the Office of Net Assessment ( ONA ) and the creation of a plan to rebuild it in accordance with the Department’s strategic priorities, according to Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell in a statement. This choice ensures that while maintaining transparency and efficiency, our tools are focused on the most pressing issues relating to regional stability.
On the website of the Pentagon, top-ranking security officials were given “long-term analytical assessments” of dangers, trends, and opportunities relating to U.S. military-related endeavors. ONA was established in 1973. In recent years, this has included creating internal reports that “represent ] years of extensive research” of these problems, which “provide strategic-level management insight to the Secretary of Defense and other top Navy leaders.”
Hegseth apparently instructed the Defense Department’s Performance Improvement officer and chairman of management and administration to resign all human employees to other “mission critical positions” within the department, while defense personnel may return to their service and get new billets. This memo was obtained by Breaking Defense. The chief consolidation officer of the agency is also instructed to” sever ensure that the necessary steps are taken” by office contracting authorities to cancel” all Noah contracts awarded for ONA and ONA-related needs,” the outlet reported.  ,
Democrats like Sen. Jack Reed, D-R. I’ve already started criticizing the administration’s overhaul of ONA, but I should point out Stefan Halper‘s well-known Russia collusion collusion ties.
According to Margot Cleveland, Halper” served as a confidential human source for the FBI during the targeting of the Trump campaign,” recording several conversations with Carter Page and George Papadopoulos, as well as taped an extensive conversation with Sam Clovis, a co-chair of the Trump presidential campaign.
According to Cleveland, Halper was receiving “hundreds of thousands of dollars” from the ONA, including two contracts signed at the same time he was working with the FBI on the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
[READ: The FBI’s Leading Russian Spy Made Bizarre Resume Claims ]
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote a number of letters to ONA Director James Baker throughout the year 2020 asking for details on the former FBI source’s agreements with the Pentagon-based think tank as a result of Halper’s ties to the organization. In a press release from January 2020, Iowa’s senior senator specifically questioned ONA’s” stewardship of taxpayer dollars as well as its contract management and internal controls.”
In a Thursday statement, Grassley praised the Trump administration’s decision to overhaul ONA, claiming that it was a “wise move that saves American taxpayers over 20 million dollars annually.”
I’m thrilled to learn that President Trump is absolving this wasteful and ineffective office, Grassley said on Thursday,” after years raising Cain about the Office of Net Assessment’s failure to strengthen our national defense and its rampant abuse of taxpayer dollars.” ” Honor the Lord,”
Shawn Fleetwood is a University of Mary Washington graduate and a staff writer for The Federalist. He previously worked for Convention of States Action as a state content writer, and his articles have appeared in numerous publications, including Conservative Review, RealClearPolitics, and RealClear Health. Follow him on Twitter at @ShawnFleetwood
