Editorial Board
A Pentagon Campaign to Keep the Public in the Dark
Reports that were never classified before are suddenly considered top-secret.
Approved for distribution.
Photograph: AFP via Getty Images
President Trump doesn’t much care for efforts to monitor and report on wasteful Pentagon spending and other military inefficiencies. This month, he ordered acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan to withhold battlefield reports from inspectors general in order to keep the information from becoming public.
“The public means the enemy,” Trump explained. “Those reports should be private reports.”