A4 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 , 2019
said a permanent commissioner
would enable the agency “to take
new directions” on such issues as
reducing s mokers’ dependence on
nicotine, the youth vaping epi-
demic a nd drug pricing.
The other former FDA chiefs
who endorsed Sharpless were
Robert Califf and Margaret Ham-
burg, who served during the
Obama administration, and An-
drew von Eschenbach, who led
the agency during the George W.
Bush administration.
Gottlieb, who preceded Sharp-
less, said he “fully supports”
Sharpless’s nomination and con-
firmation, but he did not sign the
letter to avoid any debate about
post-employment restrictions
that limit his contact with federal
health officials.
[email protected]youth vaping.
The two letters sent Tuesday
insist that Sharpless is the best
person for the job.
“We need to have a strong lead-
er like Ned who has treated pa-
tients, run clinical trials and ad-
vanced science with every posi-
tion he has held,” said Ellen V.
Sigal, chair of the nonprofit or-
ganization Friends of Cancer Re-
search. Other patient and disease
groups that signed the letter in-
clude the American Cancer Soci-
ety Cancer Action Network, the
National B rain Tumor Society a nd
the Leukemia & Lymphoma Soci-
ety.
Mark McClellan, an FDA com-
missioner during the George W.
Bush administration, was one of
four previous agency heads to sign
a letter supporting Sharpless. HeMore recently, some health
groups and scientists have raised
concerns that Azar may be sup-
porting Brett Giroir, assistant
HHS secretary for health, for the
FDA job, at least in an acting
capacity. Giroir has implemented
several controversial administra-
tion policies, including antiabor-
tion initiatives and new restric-
tions on federal funding for fetal-
tissue research.
Although Sharpless is well
liked by the research community,
he faces s ome challenges. R ecords
show that he donated to Barack
Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presiden-
tial campaigns and to other Dem-
ocrats. And some Democrats —
notably, Sen. Richard J. Durbin
(D-Ill.) — have repeatedly criti-
cized Sharpless for not moving
aggressively enough to stemtapped as acting FDA commis-
sioner in March, when Scott Gott-
lieb announced he was leaving the
agency. A s the a cting head, Sharp-
less can serve only until early
November, under f ederal rules.
The Department of Health and
Human Services declined to com-
ment on the letters or on Sharp-
less’s prospects.
Earlier this summer, indica-
tions were that Sharpless and two
other candidates were in the run-
ning for the FDA job. One report-
edly was Alexa Boer Kimball, a
Harvard dermatology professor
and president and chief executive
of the Harvard Medical Faculty
Physicians at Beth Israel Deacon-
ess Medical C enter. The other w as
a doctor at MD Anderson Cancer
Center whose name was not dis-
closed.other from more than 50 cancer
groups and other o rganizations —
to President Trump and Health
and Human Services Secretary
Alex Azar. The letters had the
same message: The FDA needs a
permanent commissioner, and
Sharpless should be nominated
and confirmed to lead the a gency.
The maneuvering underscored
the importance of the FDA job,
which is often overlooked in the
hyper-political atmosphere in
Washington. Headquartered in
Silver Spring, Md., t he agency reg-
ulates a huge slice of products
consumed by Americans, from let-
tuce to e-cigarettes to cancer m ed-
ications.
Sharpless, a North Carolina
ca ncer researcher who was ap-
pointed by Trump to be head of
the National Cancer Institute, wasBY LAURIE MCGINLEYThe jockeying over who will be
the next Food and Drug Adminis-
tration commissioner intensified
Tuesday when former agency
heads and dozens of health
groups urged the White House to
nominate acting FDA chief Nor-
man “Ned” Sharpless to become
the agency’s permanent commis-
sioner.
Supporters of Sharpless sent
two letters — one from four for-
mer FDA commissioners and the
BY PAUL SONNE
AND SEUNG MIN KIMThe Pentagon is defunding
Hurricane Maria recovery proj-
ects at military installations in
Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin
Islands to pay for President
Trump’s border barrier and is
also taking money from con-
struction projects across Europe
designed to help allies deter
Russia.
The details of the 127 military
construction projects that stand
to lose funding to free up
$3.6 billion for fencing and barri-
ers on the southern border with
Mexico were made public late
Wednesday by the Defense De-
partment. The list features proj-
ects in 23 states, three U.S.
territories and 20 countries.
The decisions deal a particular
blow to Puerto Rico, where more
than $400 million worth of
planned projects stand to lose
funding. Roughly $770 million of
the money will be taken from
projects in allied European na-
tions aimed at helping them
deter a possible attack from
Russia.
Officially, the Pentagon is say-
ing the affected projects are “de-
ferred,” but for them to go ahead
in the future, Congress must
again fund them. The Republi-
can-led Senate has agreed to do
so in its annual defense policy
bill, but the Democratic-led
House refused in its version of
the bill. The two sides will nego-
tiate a possible compromise in
conference, the period when the
Senate and House make trades t o
meld two bills into one before
seeking the president’s signa-
ture.
If Congress declines to fund
the construction projects, they
will remain in limbo and effec-
tively be defunded. If they are
indeed “backfilled” in the com-
ing year’s budget, some could
proceed without delay, because
the Pentagon deliberately chose
projects with contract award
dates scheduled for future years.
The department also chose proj-
ects that were already facing
delays.
Rep. Mac Thornberry (Tex.),
the top Republican on the House
Armed Services Committee, ar-
gued that Trump had
been “forced” t o reroute funding
away from military projects
toward efforts to stem the migra-
tion crisis at the border, and he
urged Congress to restore the
money.
“Failing to do so only forces
our troops to pay for political
discord in Washington,” Thorn-
berry said in statement Wednes-
day.
But Democratic lawmakers
vowed again this week not
to backfill funds for the affected
military projects — arguing that
Congress already approved the
money once and would not do so
again.
“The president is ignoring his
lack of authority when it comes
to stealing congressionally di-
rected funding,” Rep. Ben Ray
Luján (D-N.M.) said in an inter-
view Wednesday. “The notion
that the president is suggesting
that, ‘Well, don’t worry, the proj-
ects will be backfilled,’ just shows
the lack of understanding fromthis president of how the appro-
priations process works.”
Luján represents Holloman
Air Force Base, which stands to
lose $85 million that had been
designated for a facility holding a
squadron of MQ-9 Reaper
drones. Holloman had been cho-
sen a decade ago as a preferred
base for the squadron, Luján
said.
“This is a facility that would
house training units for new
pilots and sensor operators,” Lu-
já n said. “ This i s an e ssential part
of our national security.”
The Pentagon’s disclosures of
the affected projects also
prompted objections from Re-
publicans, including Sens. Mike
Lee and Mitt Romney of Utah,
which will lose $54 million allo-
cated for Hill Air Force Base.
“Funding the border wall is an
important priority,” R omney said
in a statement. “The Executive
Branch should use the appropri-
ate channels in Congress, rather
than divert already appropriated
funding away from military con-
struction projects and therefore
undermining military readi-
ness.”
Lee and Romney voted against
Trump’s border emergency inMarch.
A senior defense official,
speaking on the condition of
anonymity at a Pentagon briefing
on Wednesday because the De-
fense Department declined to
hold the event on the r ecord, said
the agency is committed to pro-
ceeding with the projects on the
list and plans to work with
Congress to replenish their fund-
ing. The official expressed confi-
dence that the funding would be
backfilled but acknowledged it
was not guaranteed.
The official said that of the 13
projects on the list from Puerto
Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands,
10 were part of efforts to restore
military installations after Hur-
ricane Maria. The projects in-
clude the construction of a
school for military children on
what was once Ramey Air Force
Base and improvements to Camp
Santiago, a training facility oper-
ated by the Puerto Rico National
Guard.
The official said the contracts
on those projects are not due to
start for at least a year, which
gives Congress an opportunity to
restore the funding and proceed
without delay.
“We are fully committed to therecovery effort for Maria,” the
defense official said.
The administration is a lso ask-
ing allies to foot the bill for some
of the p rojects on foreign s oil, the
official said. Those include more
than $770 million worth of proj-
ects for the E uropean Deterrence
Initiative and its predecessor
program, which President Ba-
rack Obama launched in 2014 to
shore up the defenses of Euro-
pean allies after Russia annexed
Crimea from Ukraine.
The affected initiatives in-
clude a plan to build a facility for
special operations forces and
their training in Estonia, proj-
ects to construct ammunition
and fuel storage facilities and
staging areas in Poland, and
planned upgrades to surveil-
lance aircraft facilities in Italy, as
well as airfield and fuel storage
upgrades in Slovakia and Hunga-
ry.
More broadly, the list of proj-
ects runs the gamut, from a space
control facility at Peterson Air
Force Base in Colorado; to weap-
ons training ranges in Mississip-
pi, Oregon, Oklahoma, Wiscon-
sin and Alaska; to central heat
and power plant boilers that
need repairs at Eielson Air Force
Base in Alaska. Also on the list is
a $9 million plan to replace a
working-dog treatment facility
at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Nine projects involve renovat-
ing and replacing schools for
military children on bases in the
United States and abroad. Asked
why the Pentagon was prioritiz-
ing border barriers over educa-
tion facilities for the children of
military families, the senior de-
fense official said, “We have ex-
isting facilities for ongoing supe-
rior education that the Depart-
ment of Defense provides
through its schools — and that
will continue until we get these
projects built.”
The information about the
projects comes a day after De-
fense Secretary Mark T. Esper
formally approved a decision to
divert the $3.6 billion to pay for
175 miles of barrier on the south-
ern border.
To do so, Esper relied on
an obscure part of the U.S. code
governing the military. Known a s
Section 2808, the law allows the
defense secretary, during nation-
al emergencies requiring the useof the armed forces, to tap mili-
tary construction funds without
sign-off from Congress for proj-
ects necessary to support those
troops. Esper deemed the barri-
ers necessary to support the
troops Trump deployed to the
border to help Customs and
Border Protection with an influx
of primarily Central American
migrant families.
The Pentagon gained access to
the authority after Trump de-
clared a national emergency in
mid-February, having failed to
persuade Congress to provide
more money for the project. The
dispute led to the longest U.S.
government shutdown in his-
tory, lasting 35 days in late 2018
and early 2019.
The Trump administration
has also used a separate coun-
terdrug law to access $2.5 billion
for barrier construction from the
Pentagon budget. It i s also taking
$601 million from the Treasury
Department asset forfeiture
fund for the barrier construc-
tion. On the campaign trail,
Trump regularly said Mexico
would pay for his border wall
project.
The $3.6 billion will pay to
replace existing barriers or fenc-
es and construct new fence sys-
tems.
Some $1.16 billion of the fund-
ing will go to construct a second
fence system to prevent pedestri-
an entry where the mili-
tary’s Barry M. Goldwater Bomb-
ing Range abuts the border with
Mexico and to replace vehicle
barriers that separate the Cabeza
Prieta National Wildlife Refuge
from Mexico with fencing. An
additional $40 million will go
toward replacing a 1.5-to-2-mile
stretch of fencing along the
bombing range.
An additional $1.27 b illion will
be spent on a new fence system
for about 52 miles along the Rio
Grande outside Laredo, Te x. And
$476 million will go to replace
23.5 miles of vehicle barriers
with fencing in Hidalgo and
Luna counties in New Mexico.
The 11 projects are envisioned
on military-owned land, govern-
ment-owned land and private
land. All the land must first be
transferred to the U. S. military
before construction can begin.
[email protected]
[email protected]Puerto Rico projects among those losing money to wall
Defense-related work in
Europe also defunded to
pay for border barriersCAROLYN VAN HOUTEN/THE WASHINGTON POST
Construction underway last month at the U.S.-Mexico border in Calexico, Calif., where a new wall will
replace fencing. The Pentagon is defunding 127 construction projects to pay for border projects.O∞cials, health groups endorse Sharpless as permanent FDA commissioner
BY DAN LAMOTHEThe Pentagon has warned for-
mer defense secretary Jim Mat-
tis’s onetime speechwriter that he
could face “a range of potential
consequences” if he reveals classi-
fied information in a forthcoming
book or unclassified details that
defense officials determine vio-
late “the trust” of Mattis, accord-
ing to letters and memos obtained
by The Washington Post.
Retired Navy Cmdr. Guy
Snodgrass, who worked for Mattis
for 17 months and retired in Au-
gust 2018, has sued the Defense
Department, alleging that the
Pentagon has imposed prior re-
straint on his book by dragging
out a review of his manuscript for
months.
The department “deliberately
failed to fulfill its lawful obliga-
tions” and has imposed “inappro-
priate and legally inapplicable re-
quirements” on Snodgrass, the
lawsuit says.
The book, “Holding the Line:
Inside Trump’s Pentagon with
Secretary Mattis,” i s billed by pub-
lisher Penguin Random House as
an “insider’s sometimes shocking
account of how Defense Secretary
James Mattis led the U.S. military
through global challenges while
serving as a crucial check on the
Trump Administration.” It origi-
nally was scheduled for publica-
tion Oct. 29 but was delayed be-
cause of the Pentagon’s c ontinued
hold on the work, according to the
lawsuit.
The dispute has emerged as
Mattis releases his own book,
“Call Sign Chaos: Learning to
Lead,” in which he details his
41-year career as a Marine officer
and briefly touches on his time in
the Trump administration.
Snodgrass, in an affidavit filed
late Tuesday, said he contacted
Mattis about “Holding the Line”
in March. The former Pentagon
chief responded in an email that
he regretted that his former
speechwriter appears “to be vio-
lating the trust that permitted you
as a member of my staff to be in
private meetings in my office,
where those of us carrying the
responsibilities believed that all
could speak openly in pre-deci-
sional discussions,” Snodgrass
said in the affidavit.
Snodgrass said he was in-
formed by the Pentagon last
month that a review for classified
material in his book has been
completed but was told in an
Aug. 23 telephone conversation
that senior Pentagon officials haddirected the Defense Department
Office of Prepublication and Secu-
rity Review to withhold clearing it
“pending the outcome of high-lev-
el discussions.”
Snodgrass said in a brief phone
interview Tuesday that he “re-
mains committed to working with
the Defense Department” to re-
solve concerns about the project.
Mattis, who resigned in De-
cember while citing disagree-
ments with Trump, could not be
reached for comment.
Air Force Col. DeDe Halfhill, aPentagon spokeswoman, said de-
fense officials are reviewing the
lawsuit and consulting with the
Justice Department. “I have no
further information to provide at
this time,” s he said.
The lawsuit, filed last week and
first reported on by NBC News,
describes how the Pentagon alleg-
edly responded after the book’s
publisher announced its sched-
uled release. Letters and memos
obtained by The Post lay out the
disagreement in greater detail.
A Pentagon lawyer, Robert E.Easton, sent a letter to Snodgrass
in March warning that he was
required to submit the work for a
review to assess whether it con-
tains classified information, a
common step for books published
by service members. Easton also
questioned whether Snodgrass
had removed government records
from Pentagon custody, citing the
publisher’s claim that Snodgrass
kept “meticulous notes” of his
time working for Mattis.
Snodgrass’s attorney, Mark
Zaid, responded a week later that
his client was “well aware of his
prepublication requirements”
and planned to work with the
Pentagon.
In July, Zaid sent another letter
in which he took issue with how
the staff of Marine Gen. Joseph F.
Dunford Jr., the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, screened
Snodgrass’s book. Joint Staff offi-
cials wanted to remove nearly
three chapters that detailed con-
versations in “the Ta nk,” t he con-
ference room in which the Joint
Chiefs of Staff meet.
Zaid wrote, “I know you are
aware that the only type of infor-
mation that the U.S. Government
can legally prohibit a non-govern-
mental official from publishing is
classified information.”
But Easton disputed that. In a
response to Zaid in late July, he
wrote that Snodgrass’s obliga-
tions e xtend beyond safeguardingclassified information.
“His oath of office and personal
integrity impart a special obliga-
tion to protect such information
regardless of classification,” Eas-
ton wrote, adding that “there is a
range of potential consequences
for violating that oath.”
Easton cited a Navy Depart-
ment document that lays out how
the Pentagon can demote some-
one in rank in retirement.
“I do not know how else to take
that comment other than a threat
that my rank could be reduced if I
did not comply with DoD’s re-
quirements,” Snodgrass said in
the affidavit.
Easton also cited a memo
signed by Mattis in October 20 17
that was “written in large part by
Mr. Snodgrass” and warned that it
is “a violation of our oath to di-
vulge, in any fashion, non-public
DoD information, classified or
unclassified.”
In an Aug. 7 letter to Easton,
Zaid said the only point the Penta-
gon can argue is whether the
conversations that Snodgrass de-
scribes occurring in the Ta nk are
classified. The location of the con-
versations alone does not prevent
Snodgrass from detailing them,
Zaid wrote, noting that former
defense secretaries Ash Carter,
Leon Panetta, Robert Gates and
Donald H. Rumsfeld did so in
their own books.
[email protected]Pentagon warns former Mattis speechwriter about his book, memos show
COURTESY GUY SNODGRASS/U.S. NAVY
Guy Snodgrass says the Pentagon imposed prior restraint on his
book. It has told him not to reveal classified information.Four ex-agency leaders
lent their support
in letters to White HouseRetired Navy officer sues
agency, saying it dragged
out manuscript review