Overnight Defense: Top Pentagon tech officials resigning | Bolton worried about biological weapons | Trump threatens ‘serious force’

Happy Tuesday and welcome to Overnight Defense. I’m Ellen Mitchell, and here’s your nightly guide to the latest developments at the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill and beyond. CLICK HERE to subscribe to the newsletter.

THE TOPLINE: The Pentagon’s top technology official and his deputy are resigning next month, a Defense Department official confirmed on Tuesday.

Mike Griffin, the Pentagon’s first undersecretary of research and engineering, and his deputy, Lisa Porter, will leave July 10, the official said.

The resignations were first reported by Inside Defense.

Why they’re leaving: Griffin, who took on the role in early 2018, and Porter said in a letter to staff that “a private-sector opportunity has presented itself to us, offering an opportunity we have decided to pursue together,” Defense News reported.

“It has been a pleasure leading this great team over the past few years. We greatly appreciate your hard work, diligence, integrity, and devotion to technical excellence and technical truth in furtherance of the R&E mission,” the two wrote, according to the outlet. “We wish you all the very best.”

A troubling pattern: The two are the third and fourth officials to announce their resignation in the last week.

Kathryn Wheelbarger, the acting assistant Defense secretary for international security affairs, submitted her resignation on June 17, five days after President Trump pulled her name as the intended nominee to be deputy under secretary of Defense for intelligence. 

And Elaine McCusker, the Pentagon’s acting comptroller who questioned the Trump administration for its withholding of aid to Ukraine last year, submitted her resignation the previous day after the White House in early March pulled her nomination for the official comptroller role.

 

BOLTON WORRIED ABOUT BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS IF TRUMP IS REELECTED: Former national security adviser John Bolton expressed concern in a new interview that hostile actors would acquire biological weapons or the U.S. could withdraw from NATO if President Trump is reelected.

“If Trump’s response to the [coronavirus] pandemic has proven [anything] to anybody who’s contemplating acquiring a biological weapons capability, it’s that he’s not able to respond to it in a systematic fashion,” Bolton told Axios.

“Whatever the source of this pandemic, it’s a roadmap for the people who do control biological weapons, or aspire to biological weapons, what can happen,” he added, while not specifying which actors he had in mind.

‘Highly questionable’: Bolton also said it is “highly questionable” whether Trump would keep the U.S. in NATO if reelected, citing the administration’s plans to withdraw thousands of troops from Germany.

“I’m not averse to moving 9,000, 10,000 troops out of Germany if we’re going to move them to Poland or someplace else,” Bolton told the news outlet. “But that’s not why he’s bringing those troops home. My first reaction [to Trump’s German troop drawdown announcement] was this is the beginning of the end.”

Allied relationships in question?: The former national security adviser went on to argue that the relationship with several U.S. allies is in question.

“I think the alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia are question marks at this point,” he said. “If you believe the world’s far away, then why have these alliances at all?”

White House pushes back: Alyssa Farah, the White House director of strategic communications, pushed back against Bolton’s remarks, citing actions during the president’s first years in office.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, our allies are contributing more than $130 billion more to NATO, we’ve taken two of the world’s foremost terrorists off the battlefield, restored deterrence with Iran, and we are on pace to bring American soldiers home from the longest war in American history,” Farah told Axios.

Bolton, she said, “doesn’t have a single foreign policy or national defense achievement.”

The White House has been engaged in both a war of words and a legal battle over Bolton’s memoir, claiming it contains classified information. A federal court ruled last week that its publication, scheduled for Tuesday, can proceed.

 

TRUMP: ANY DC AUTONOMOUS ZONE WILL FACE ‘SERIOUS FORCE’: Trump on Tuesday threatened that protesters seeking to establish an “autonomous zone” in the nation’s capital would be met with “serious force” following a night of demonstrations near the White House.

“There will never be an ‘Autonomous Zone’ in Washington, D.C., as long as I’m your President. If they try they will be met with serious force!” Trump tweeted.

The threat came after tense demonstrations on Monday night where protesters attempted to topple a statue of President Jackson in Lafayette Square across the street from the White House.

Law enforcement intervened, deploying pepper spray and using force to disperse the protest before the statue could be pulled down.

Context: The letters “BHAZ” were spray-painted on the columns of St. John’s Church in the park, an acronym for “Black House Autonomous Zone.”

The phrase appeared to be taking after the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, also known as the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, in Seattle that was established earlier this month amid protests against police brutality and racial injustice.

Protests have persisted over the last month in response to the police killing of George Floyd, with demonstrators calling for police reform and action to address racial injustice. The gatherings have evolved in recent days to target statues of Confederate leaders and other controversial historical figures.

Setting up for a battle: The president has staunchly opposed the removal of statues or namesakes honoring Confederate leaders, citing national “heritage.”

Trump and conservative media have also focused extensively on the autonomous zone in Seattle, painting it as a bastion of lawlessness and calling for state and local leaders to forcibly break it up.

The protesters inside the autonomous zone can come and go as they please and are pushing for an overhaul of local law enforcement, with some advocating for decreased police funding in favor of community programs. But Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan (D) said Monday that officials will move to disband the autonomous zone following two weekend shootings in the area.

 

ON TAP FOR TOMORROW:

The Center for Strategic and International Studies will hold a webcast on “ROK-U.S. Strategic Forum 2020: 70 Years Later: Bringing Peace to the Korean Peninsula and Beyond,” with Acting Assistant Defense Secretary for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs David Helvey; former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert; and former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Kathleen Stephens, at 8 a.m. 

The Atlantic Council will host a web broadcast conversation with German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer on “Resilience and the Transatlantic Alliance,” at 9:30 a.m.

The Intelligence National Security Alliance will hold a webinar with Suzanne White, deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, at 4:30 p.m.

 

ICYMI

– The Hill: US soldier accused of sending information to neo-Nazi group as part of plot to attack his unit

– The Hill: Bolton says he would consider testifying against Barr

– The Hill: Pompeo: Bolton left out of meetings ‘because he was leaking or he would twist things or he’d lie’

– The Hill: South Korean group floats leaflets across North Korean border despite warnings

– The Hill: South Korea slams Bolton book as ‘distorting the reality’ of nuclear talks

– Defense News: Congress has questions about the Air Force’s and Navy’s next-generation fighter programs