GAO: Tuberville's promotion hold on generals caused family issues, didn't impair military readiness

Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s nearly yearlong blockade of promotions for U.S. generals and admirals in 2023 didn’t impair military readiness. However, it disrupted “the standard flow of leadership” throughout the Pentagon and caused problems for some military families, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.

The Alabama Republican began his hold in February 2023 to protest a Biden administration Pentagon policy that authorized travel and leave for service members seeking an abortion. He lifted the hold 10 months later after facing mounting bipartisan pressure. The GAO said 447 generals and admirals were impacted by the decision.

Some former and then current Pentagon officials complained that national security was put at risk because of Mr. Tuberville’s hold. A group of former secretaries of defense wrote that it “sent the wrong message” to potential adversaries.

However, the congressional watchdog agency found no indication that Mr. Tuberville’s hold harmed the military’s ability to accomplish its missions.

“Upon reviewing 2023 and 2024 readiness reports that [the Pentagon] submitted to Congress, GAO did not find that [the Defense Department] had identified the 2023 hold as a readiness challenge,” the GAO analysts said in their report released Thursday.

In a statement to The Washington Times on Friday, Mr. Tuberville said his holds over the Biden administration’s “illegal and immoral taxpayer-funded abortion policy” did not harm military readiness.

“If the Biden administration was actually concerned about readiness, they would have reversed the policy and I would have immediately dropped the holds,” the senator said. “But they didn’t because they care more about taxpayer-funded abortion on demand than they care about our troops.”

Mr. Tuberville credited the Trump administration for purging the Pentagon of woke politics and focusing on combat readiness.

The hold did impede the promotion cycle and pay for some of the nominated officers. It affected their ability to accrue time-in-grade requirements, the amount of time that generals and admirals must spend in a grade before they are eligible for promotion, the GAO said.

Some military families said the hold upended their lives. They weren’t able to move to planned duty stations, enroll their children in schools on time, or begin new spousal employment opportunities. In some cases, they had to move into temporary housing after selling their homes in anticipation of a transfer to a new duty station, according to the GAO report.

The Defense Department lessened the effects of Mr. Tuberville’s hold by deferring retirements and having senior civilian executives or other generals and admirals serve in acting capacities.

GAO found that DOD mitigated the effects of the 2023 hold by proceeding with planned assignments for some officers, deferring retirements, and having senior civilian executives or other GFOs serve in acting capacities. In some cases, the incumbent heads of organizations were asked to remain in place until their successor had been confirmed. At times, deputies stepped into leadership positions in an acting capacity while the hold was ongoing.

Mr. Tuberville lifted his hold in December 2023 after failing to achieve the goal of reversing the Pentagon’s abortion policy.