Retired Lt. Gen. Daniel "Razin" Caine, the nominee for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, largely side-stepped questions from Senate Armed Services Committee Democrats about his views on the Signal chat controversy.
But he did allow that officials should always protect the "element of surprise," a nod toward concerns that Trump officials breached security protocols in the scandal.
Under questioning from several panel Democrats, Caine was repeatedly asked about how he would have responded to the leak, which happened after national security adviser Michael Waltz accidentally invited a journalist to a Signal chat group.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth then shared sensitive information with the group about upcoming U.S. airstrikes against Houthi militants in Yemen.
"Knowing what you do, about the substance of that conversation, how would you feel?" Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) asked Caine.
Caine replied that "we all can agree that we need to always protect the element of surprise," later saying, "that's a key and essential thing that we owe our war-fighters."
And when Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) asked what Caine would do if he saw classified information, war plans or tactical information on an unclassified chain of communication, he said he would "weigh in and stop it if I was a part of it."
Caine's hearing comes after Trump blindsided the Pentagon in February by firing seven top officials, including then-Joint Chiefs Chairman Air Force Gen. C.Q. Brown.
Critics of the move worry that in nominating Caine, whom Trump has extolled as a loyalist, the president was seeking to fill top Defense leadership positions with those that wouldn't dissent from his opinion, slanting the historically apolitical U.S. military in his favor.
But Caine vowed to serve apolitically, saying that he would not become a "yes man" for Trump if confirmed and pledged to follow U.S. laws and the Constitution. He also said he was willing to be fired and would push back if Trump asked him to carry out illegal orders.
Read the full report at TheHill.com.
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