Ex-defense chief unloads on the bizarre lack of transparency in Trump’s Pentagon

Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta blasted Trump’s Department of Defense for not holding an on-camera press briefing at the Pentagon in more than 300 days.

“This is a democracy, for God’s sake,” Panetta said Monday at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“The Defense Department has a responsibility to be transparent with the American people and to Congress about the decisions that are being made and about the crises that they are having to deal with and how their funds are being used.”

Panetta added that the Pentagon was undermining itself by not being more transparent. He warned that members of Congress would not be happy about being blindsided.

“We’re a democracy,” he explained. “The Pentagon is not some kind of on your own independent agency that can do whatever the hell they want without responding to the Congress and to the American people -- and being accountable to the Congress and to the American people.

“So I think it’s a bad mistake not to be transparent because it’ll only hurt their ability to do their job by not keeping the American people informed.”

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