Trump Wants Mattis for Defense Secretary

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen retired Marine Gen. James Mattis to be secretary of defense, the Washington Post reports, “nominating a former senior military officer who led operations across the Middle East to run the Pentagon less than four years after he hung up his uniform.”

“To take the job, Mattis will need Congress to pass new legislation to bypass a federal law stating that defense secretaries must not have been on active duty in the previous seven years. Congress has granted a similar exception just once, when Gen. George C. Marshall was appointed to the job in 1950.”