John Rood, the Pentagon’s top policy official, was notably absent from a House Armed Services subcommittee posture *hearing on the strategic forces Thursday, one week after he announced his upcoming resignation.
Mr. Rood has served as the Defense Department’s under secretary of defense for policy since January 2018 and is set to formally resign Friday after reports of clashes with other top foreign policy officials inside the Pentagon and at the White House.
James Anderson, the department’s interim policy chief, attended the hearing in Mr. Rood’s place.
A former Lockheed Martin executive who previously held posts at the State Department and Capitol Hill, Mr. Rood signed off on the military aid package to Ukraine in early 2019 that became the central pillar in Mr. Trump’s subsequent impeachment trial.
Mr. Rood was pushed out of his job at the direct request of Mr. Trump, marking the latest senior defense official to leave his post in the last six months amid tensions over the extent of White House influence in military affairs.
* (Correction: An updated text and headline of the story corrected what kind of hearing was held.)
• Lauren Toms can be reached at lmeier@washingtontimes.com.
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