Biden's Pentagon nominee under fire for track record on border, Chinese spy balloon

Republican President Joe Biden's nominee for Under Secretary of the Air Force, the second-highest civilian position in the military branch, is under fire for her track record after Republican senators questioned her response to the southern border crisis and the Chinese spy balloon that flew over the U.S. last year.

Melissa Dalton, who currently serves as the Pentagon's Assistant Secretary of Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday as lawmakers considered her nomination for under secretary for a second time. She was first nominated for the position in September but was renominated this month after the Senate did not act on her nomination before the end of 2023. 

The border controversy arose out of a letter Dalton wrote last year as Homeland Defense assistant secretary in response to questions from Republican senators about the auction of border wall materials.

Armed Services Chair Jack Reed, D-R.I., acknowledged that she was not responsible for the sale, and Dalton testified that she responded to the letter because she takes the "oversight role of Congress incredibly seriously" and felt that Senate Republicans "deserved a thorough response," so she and her team undertook their own fact finding mission.

The Defense Department was spending $130,000 every day to store the construction materials, Senate Republicans said. The border wall materials were auctioned for about 3 cents for every taxpayer dollar originally spent, committee member Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said in the hearing. Days after the selloff, the Biden administration approved construction of a new border barrier, per Newsweek.

Dalton said multiple times in the hearing that the issue was not under her portfolio, but under that of the Defense Department's logistics agency.

Senators also grilled her on her response to the Chinese spy balloon that flew over Alaska, Canada and the continental United States before it was shot down on Feb. 4, 2023, over the Atlantic Ocean. 

Dalton said she was one of the officials advising Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin during the debacle, but that "the best military advice to not shoot down the balloon over U.S. territory came from our senior military officials."

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