Christine Wormuth has been approved as the first female to serve as Army secretary on Thursday — a day after her confirmation by unanimous consent in the Senate was suddenly rescinded.
Just hours after the Senate confirmed her Wednesday evening, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer asked the chamber to reverse itself and deleted a tweet praising Wormuth’s confirmation, Defense News reported.
“As in executive session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate vitiate the previous action on Executive Calendar 135,” Schumer (D-NY) said on the Senate floor.
The chamber then adjourned for the night.
On Thursday, Schumer asked for the motion to reconsider be removed and that Wormuth’s nomination be approved.
He later tweeted that she had been confirmed but the post did not include an explanation of what happened to temporarily derail the confirmation.
President Biden nominated Wormuth for the post last month and the former Pentagon policy chief during the Obama administration was praised by senators from both parties for her qualifications to serve in the role.
Ranking Member Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., speaks as nominee to be Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth appears at a Senate Armed Services Committee nomination hearing. APWormuth, hours earlier, said she would be honored to be confirmed.
“Serving in this role is a tremendous privilege and responsibility!” she wrote on Twitter.
Roll Call reporter Andrew Clevenger, who has covered her confirmation, said the reversal “looks more like a procedural hiccup than a threat to her historic nomination” in a Twitter post.
“Unclear why the Senate would do this, but it appears there wasn’t quite unanimous consent to confirm Wormuth as we reported earlier. This looks more like a procedural hiccup than a threat to her historic confirmation, but we’ll learn more soon,” he wrote.
Wormuth led Biden’s transition team at the Pentagon.
Christine Wormuth speaks with former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. APShe has also served on the National Security Council, along with other Defense Department positions.
Wormuth is the director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corp., a federally funded think tank.
With Post wires






