Hegseth limits Pentagon officials’ interactions with Congress

Washington — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has signed a memo requiring formal approval for nearly all Department of Defense correspondence and interactions with Congress, according to the memo obtained by CBS News.

Most offices will require approval to communicate with Congress, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Joint Staff, the commanders of the combatant commands, and the secretaries of each military department, among others. There is a carve-out for the Office of the Inspector General, which is supposed to act independently.  The digital publication Breaking Defense first reported on the memo. 

CBS News has reached out to the House and Senate committees that oversee the Pentagon.
Democratic Sen. Jack Reed, who is the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement to CBS News that “requiring all Department of Defense communications with Congress to be controlled by Secretary Hegseth’s office raises serious questions about transparency and the timely flow of information that lawmakers need to conduct oversight.”

The memo directs nearly all communication including requests for information from Congress to go through the assistant secretary for legislative affairs. 

“Unauthorized engagements with Congress by [Defense Department] personnel acting in their official capacity, no matter how well-intentioned, may undermine Department-wide priorities critical to achieving our legislative objectives,” says the memo, which was also signed by Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg. “Effective immediately,” the memo says affected offices “must coordinate all legislative affairs activities” through the assistant secretary for legislative affairs. 

The memo comes on the heels of nearly every major news organization, including CBS News, leaving their workspace in the Pentagon after declining to sign onto new press requirements that reporters’ associations said could infringe on their First Amendment rights. The Defense Department sent reporters a memo in September mandating they sign an agreement acknowledging they would need formal authorization to publish either classified or what the department called “controlled unclassified information.” The department said in the memo that “information must be approved before public release … even if it is unclassified.” All organizations with the exception of a handful of hard-right publications refused. Individuals and entities that agreed to the Pentagon’s demands included Jack Posobiec, TPUSA Frontlines and Gateway Pundit.