I don’t like doing this, but it needs to be done. People keep sending me this video; it is nonsense. Steve Bannon and John Solomon broadcast a conversation targeting John Thune, Tom Cotton and Todd Blanche for obstructing the release of transcripts held in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI).

What Solomon reports in this interview is disconnected from the process that exists. Solomon wants the transcripts of former CIA Director John Brennan released. Fine, no problem. Except Solomon apparently doesn’t understand the process to gain declassification of an equity that is not within the executive branch. The transcript is in the legislative branch.

There are separation of powers issues, equity issues and stakeholder issues that create a process that needs to be followed. This is the same process that was used to gain the Michael Atkinson transcript from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI). Solomon and Joe diGenova can follow the process and succeed, just like I did. Or Solomon and diGenova can gnash their teeth, create outrage and fail.

This nonsense is why trusting John Solomon is a fool’s errand, and the reason why I have suspected Solomon of performance theater for several years. His teaming up with Steve Bannon, well, it just tracks.

Tick-Tock… Nothing. I digress.

First, assuming they have security clearances, John Solomon and/or Joe diGenova can ask SSCI Chairman Tom Cotton to let them read the Brennan transcript in the SSCI secured compartmented intelligence facility (scif). There is nothing stopping them, or anyone else with a clearance, from reading the transcript; assuming Cotton would permit it (he would). That’s the first point.

Second, after their review they can ask the SSCI to hold a senate vote to release the legislative branch equity to the executive branch, with a classification review that might need redactions based on stakeholder equity. [Same process as the Atkinson transcript]. The Senate can then vote to release it and start the process.

I am not a defender of John Thune or Tom Cotton; the exact opposite is true. However, you don’t defeat the silo system by attacking it at the point of their greatest strength. You obtain the material by following the process and forcing compliance with due diligence [just like the Atkinson transcript].

There is a separation of powers issue. The transcript belongs to the legislative branch, not the executive branch. The executive needs to request it from the legislative. Then it needs to be reviewed by IC stakeholders (ODNI and CIA) for classification review and/or redactions. Then it is returned to the SSCI who determine how to release it – from their own committee or to the DNI for release.

In current disposition the President cannot declassify something the executive branch doesn’t have.

As to the substance of Solomon’s previous release, the “Oxferd C0mma” documents, as I said last night nothing about that release is substantively new.

FBI General Counsel James Baker testified in two sessions to the House Intelligence Committee. In the second session transcript (released by Doug Collins – READ HERE) James Baker notes the 2nd FBI investigation was planned *BEFORE* FBI Director James Comey was fired. When Comey was fired, the optimal window to open the investigation was created for Andrew McCabe.

Rosenstein agreed to the plan, and “Oxferd C0mma” was triggered on 5/16/17. The objective of the EC signed by James Baker contained spurious and obtuse evidence in text because the real goal of the FBI/DOJ was to open a Special Counsel investigation. In essence, Oxferd C0mma was the placeholder for Mueller.

The group talked about the plan before Comey was fired. Comey’s termination simply triggered the timing. All of this was known nine years ago, that’s why to CTH readers none of this is new.

[SOURCE]

Those who did the deepest dives knew the investigation that opened 5/16/17 was planned before Comey was fired, and Comey’s termination was just the trigger window of the process to deliver Mueller… which was really what “Oxferd C0mma” was about.

Additionally, James Baker -who signed the EC- testified about the process to open the second investigation. It’s in his day #2 transcript. The firing of Comey just triggered the best window for the investigation they already planned.

So, yes “Oxferd C0mma” is new to people like John Solomon, but old news for those who did the research at the time. Again, go read Baker’s testimony (link above).

You will note the Oxferd COmma investigation was triggered on May 16, 2017:

[SOURCE]

This was the exact same day when Rosenstein took Robert Mueller to the White House.

Through a FOIA request Judicial Watch received Rod Rosenstein’s email communication around the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller [See Here]. The content further confirms when Rosenstein took Mueller to the White House on May 16th, 2017, the purpose was for Mueller to preview his target, President Trump.

Rosenstein took Mueller to visit Jeff Sessions on May 13th, the specifics of that email likely concern keeping prior private conversations out of the discussion with Sessions.

(Source pdf)

If we insert the Rosenstein email conversation into our timeline, the picture is clear.

Perhaps the most important aspect is how DAG Rosenstein took Robert Mueller to the White House on May 16th, to interview President Trump.  The decision to appoint Mueller as special counsel was predetermined prior to the White House visit:

♦James Comey was fired at approximately 5:00pm EST on Tuesday May 9th, 2017. The next morning, less than 15 hours after Comey was fired, Rosenstein contacted Robert Mueller about the special counsel appointment.

During the congressional testimony of Robert Mueller, Representative Andy Biggs noted evidence of a phone call between Mueller and Rod Rosenstein on Wednesday May 10th, 2017, at 7:45am.

From the Judicial Watch FOIA release, we can see that following the 7:45am phone call Rod Rosenstein received contact info from Mueller’s asst (8:09am), and Rosenstein emailed his assistant at 8:13am with instructions to contact Mueller’s asst and set up a meeting for Friday May 12th:

Marcia Murphy, from the Office of the DAG, then followed through and set up a meeting for 8:00am, Friday May 12th at Main Justice, between Rosenstein and Mueller:

Following that May 12th 8:00am meeting with Mueller, Rod Rosenstein then met with Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe Andrew McCabe.  –  According to McCabe:

… “[Rosenstein] asked for my thoughts about whether we needed a special counsel to oversee the Russia case. I said I thought it would help the investigation’s credibility. Later that day, I went to see Rosenstein again. This is the gist of what I said: I feel strongly that the investigation would be best served by having a special counsel.” (link)

Later that night (May 12th), at 9:15pm Rosenstein then emails Robert Mueller: “I assume you realize the boss and his staff do not know about our discussions.”

That email is directly related to a meeting scheduled on Saturday May 13th between Rosenstein, Mueller and Jeff Sessions; which is confirmed in the Andy Biggs questioning.

♦Sunday May 14th –  Comey transmitted copies of Memos 2, 4, and 6, and a partially redacted copy of Memo 7 to Patrick Fitzgerald, who was one of Comey’s personal attorneys.  Fitzgerald received the email and PDF attachment from Comey at 2:27 p.m. on May 14, 2017, per the IG report.

♦Monday May 15th, McCabe states he and Rosenstein conferred again about the Special Counsel approach. McCabe: “I brought the matter up with him again after the weekend.”

On this same day was when James Rybicki called SSA Whistleblower to notify him of Comey’s memos. The memos were “stored” in a “reception area“, and in locked drawers in James Rybicki’s office.

♦Tuesday May 16th – Per the IG report: “On the morning of May 16, Comey took digital photographs of both pages of Memo 4 with his personal cell phone. Comey then sent both photographs, via text message, to Richman.

Back in Main Justice, at 12:30pm, Rod Rosenstein, Andrew McCabe, Jim Crowell and Tashina Guahar all appear to be part of this meeting.  I should note that alternate documentary evidence, gathered over the past two years, supports the content of this McCabe memo.  Including texts between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok:

[Sidebar: pay attention to the *current* redactions; they appear to be placed by existing DOJ officials in an effort to protect Rod Rosenstein for his duplicity in: (A) running the Mueller sting operation at the white house on the same day; (B) the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel, which was predetermined before the Oval Office meeting.]

While McCabe was writing this afternoon memo, still May 16th, Rod Rosenstein took Robert Mueller to the White House for a meeting in the Oval Office with President Trump and VP Mike Pence.

After six days of phone calls, emails and in person meetings, this visit to the White House was clearly Rod Rosenstein introducing Robert Mueller to the target of the investigation.  Rosenstein already knew he was going to appoint Mueller; and Mueller, along with the small group in the FBI, already knew Mueller was going to be appointed.

Later that night (May 16th), following the Mueller visit, there was a debriefing session back at Main Justice.  This evening meeting appears to be Lisa Page, Rod Rosenstein and Andrew McCabe; along with Tashina Gauhar again taking notes.

♦ Wednesday May 17th, 2017:  Rod Rosenstein and Andrew McCabe go to brief the congressional “Gang-of-Eight”: Paul Ryan, Nancy Pelosi, Devin Nunes, Adam Schiff, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Richard Burr and Mark Warner.

… […] “On the afternoon of May 17, Rosenstein and I sat at the end of a long conference table in a secure room in the basement of the Capitol. We were there to brief the so-called Gang of Eight—the majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate and the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. Rosenstein had, I knew, made a decision to appoint a special counsel in the Russia case.”

[…] “After reminding the committee of how the investigation began, I told them of additional steps we had taken. Then Rod took over and announced that he had appointed a special counsel to pursue the Russia investigation, and that the special counsel was Robert Mueller.” (link)

Immediately following this May 17, 2017, Go8 briefing, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein notified the public of the special counsel appointment.

According to President Trump’s Attorney John Dowd, the White House was stunned by the decision. [Link] Coincidentally, AG Jeff Sessions was in the Oval Office for unrelated business when White House counsel Don McGahn came in and informed the group.

Jeff Sessions immediately offered his resignation, and Session’s Chief-of-Staff Jody Hunt went back to the Main Justice office to ask Rosenstein what the hell was going on.

By Conservative Treehouse – https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2026/08/06/the-outrage-grift-steve-bannon-and-john-solomon-sell-a-false-story-relying-on-audience-naiveite/

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order targeting birth tourism, another aggressive step in his administration’s effort to restore integrity to America’s immigration system. The order directs federal agencies to prevent foreign nationals from exploiting temporary visas for the primary purpose of giving birth in the United States and securing automatic citizenship advantages for their children.

The administration notes that the practice abuses immigration law, burdens taxpayers and turns American citizenship into a commodity for wealthy foreigners. President Trump’s move fits a broader immigration agenda built around enforcement, deterrence and the principle that entry into the United States is a privilege governed by American law—not a loophole to be manipulated for long-term benefits.

Birth tourism has long highlighted the absurdities of a system in which individuals can enter temporarily, deliver a child on U.S. soil and potentially establish future immigration advantages for an entire family. Communist China certainly has been adept and exploiting this ridiculous system in order to hasten their infiltration plans.

The Trump administration is right to challenge a practice that undermines public confidence and rewards strategic circumvention of the rules. This move will be important to reversing the demographic backslide that has been underway in America for decades.

America will only remain America if we keep the stock of the country intact. When you import tons of foreigners from the third world, they change the makeup of the nation. They don’t waltz onto our magic dirt and gain our values, and we have seen that demonstrated with the Somalis in Minneapolis.

After years of lax enforcement and bureaucratic excuses, the Trump administration is sending a clear message that citizenship and immigration policy will no longer be treated as tools for gaming the system, and it has been a long time coming.

President Donald Trump’s campaign against Iran has inflicted major damage on Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure, even as questions remain about how much enriched uranium survived the strikes. Evidence of progress comes from Iran’s three principal nuclear sites. At Isfahan, facilities used to convert or enrich uranium remain significantly damaged after U.S. and Israeli attacks.

At Natanz, the aboveground plant was severely damaged, while entrances to its underground enrichment complex were struck and potentially buried. Fordo, once Iran’s most protected and advanced enrichment facility, was hit by 12 massive bombs and has been rendered inoperable.

Even Rafael Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, acknowledged that the attacks have “really rolled back the program significantly.” That admission matters, after years of warnings that Iran was moving dangerously close to weapons capability.

The remaining concern is Tehran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 percent. Inspectors previously estimated Iran possessed roughly 970 pounds, enough for nine or 10 bombs after further processing. Because Iran has blocked inspections, its exact status remains unknown. President Trump’s war on Iran has revealed that the country was significantly more advanced militarily than the country once admitted.

President Trump’s efforts to destroy nuclear infrastructure, impose massive costs on the Iranians and show them that their destabilizing actions on the world stage would not be tolerated were sorely needed. By those standards, the campaign has delivered substantial results and been a massive success. Iran’s most important facilities are damaged, its operations are disrupted and its nuclear timetable has been pushed backward.

This is not to deny that the Iran War has caused disruptions in the global marketplace and borne out some negative consequences. But the Iranian threat needed to be confronted. Their actions over the past six months have proven that. President Trump has already accomplished what diplomacy alone repeatedly failed to do, and the world will be a safer place in the decades to come because of his courage in acting.

Catherine Herridge is one of the finest investigative journalists of her generation.

Catherine Herridge is one of the finest investigative journalists of her generation. An Emmy Award winning reporter with decades of experience covering terrorism, intelligence, national security, and law enforcement she built her reputation the old fashioned way: by cultivating sources, verifying facts, and publishing stories that powerful people often wished had never seen the light of day. Whether at ABC News, Fox News, or CBS News, Herridge earned the respect of colleagues and government officials alike because she was meticulous, fearless, loyal, honest, courageous, and relentless in pursuing the truth. Those very qualities have now made her the target of a legal campaign so evil and so vindictive that it should alarm every American who still believes in a free press.

Her legal ordeal began with a 2017 investigation she reported while at Fox News concerning Yanping Chen, a Chinese American scientist whose Virginia institution had received Department of Defense, now Department of War, funding while also attracting FBI counterintelligence scrutiny over alleged ties to China’s People’s Liberation Army. Chen was never charged with a crime but later sued the federal government, claiming officials had improperly leaked information about the investigation. When years of litigation failed to identify the alleged government source, the lawyers turned their attention to Herridge herself, demanding that she reveal the confidential sources who entrusted her with information. She refused, honoring the most fundamental obligation of any serious investigative journalist.

That refusal has come at a financially debilitating personal cost which Herridge described publicly on X. Rather than accept the principle that reporters must be able to protect confidential sources, the courts have attempted to force Herridge into submission through financial punishment. She was held in civil contempt and ordered to pay $800 a day every single day until she agrees to betray the people who placed their trust in her. Imagine that. Do you have $800 a day? Now there are efforts to increase those penalties dramatically into $5000 a day while preventing outside organizations from helping pay them. The strategy is as transparent as it is reprehensible. If they cannot force her to surrender voluntarily, they intend to bankrupt her into compliance. That is not justice. It is persecution.

It is difficult to escape the conclusion that some people will not be satisfied until Catherine Herridge has been financially destroyed and living in abject poverty which is what these fines are designed to do to her. The objective is not simply to collect fines. The objective is to make an example of her. They seek to inflict such overwhelming economic and emotional pressure that no journalist will ever again dare promise confidentiality to a government source. They appear determined to hound her until she has nothing left, as though they will not rest until she is reduced to living in the gutter and eating garbage for the unforgivable offense of keeping her word.

This is nothing less than an assault on investigative journalism itself. Confidential sources are not some modern invention or legal loophole. They are the lifeblood of accountability reporting. Without confidential sources there are no Pentagon Papers. There is no Watergate. There are no whistleblowers exposing corruption inside intelligence agencies, federal law enforcement, or the national security establishment. Every major scandal involving government misconduct has depended upon brave individuals willing to speak only because they believed a journalist would protect their identity. Destroy that trust and you destroy investigative journalism.

Herridge’s reporting has consistently focused on subjects many establishment journalists either ignored or dismissed including terrorism, foreign intelligence operations, Chinese espionage, and government accountability. These are precisely the areas where confidential sources are indispensable. Every intelligence officer, law enforcement officer, and government official contemplating exposing wrongdoing is now watching her case unfold. The message they are receiving could not be clearer. If you speak to a reporter, the government may pursue that reporter relentlessly until your identity is exposed. That chilling effect is exactly what makes this case so dangerous. The victim is not merely Catherine Herridge. The victim is every future whistleblower who may now decide that speaking the truth simply carries too great a personal risk.

What makes the silence of much of the corporate media especially shameful is that the principle at stake transcends politics. Whether a journalist works for Fox News, CBS News, The New York Times, or an independent publication is beside the point. Either journalists have the ability to protect confidential sources or they do not. Once that principle is compromised, every newsroom becomes more vulnerable and every investigative reporter becomes a potential target.

Catherine Herridge could end her ordeal tomorrow. She could surrender the identities of the people who trusted her and spare herself mounting legal bills and crushing daily penalties. Instead, she has chosen honor over convenience and professional ethics over personal comfort. She has refused to break her word, despite extraordinary pressure designed to make that promise impossible to keep. That is courage. That is loyalty. That is sacrifice.

History has repeatedly vindicated those who refused to abandon principle when the cost became unbearable. Catherine Herridge is not merely defending herself. She is defending one of the cornerstones of a free society. If those determined to financially crush her succeed, they will not simply silence one courageous journalist. They will intimidate an entire generation of reporters and whistleblowers.

Every American who values the First Amendment should recognize exactly what is happening. Catherine Herridge is paying an extraordinary personal price to preserve a principle that protects all of us. She deserves our gratitude, our admiration, and our unwavering support, not a campaign calculated to bankrupt and break her.

A private examination of records associated with the 2025 New York City mayoral election has raised serious questions about the accuracy of the city’s voter rolls, but it has not established that 228,000 fraudulent ballots were cast or that Zohran Mamdani was improperly installed as mayor. That distinction is important. Election officials should not be permitted to hide behind procedural jargon when confronted with substantial anomalies, but election critics should also avoid presenting disputed data as a final verdict before the underlying records have been independently examined.

Mamdani defeated former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in the November 2025 general election. The certified results credited Mamdani with approximately 1,114,184 votes and Cuomo with 906,614, producing a margin of roughly 207,570 votes. Republican Curtis Sliwa finished a distant third. Mamdani subsequently took office in January 2026, becoming New York City’s first Muslim mayor and placing a self described democratic socialist at the helm of America’s largest city.

The controversy began with a private review conducted by election integrity activist Marly Hornik and organizations associated with NY Citizens Audit and RealAmerica.Vote. According to Hornik’s public presentation investigators examined roughly one million records from a universe of approximately 2.2 million voter records connected to the election. The inquiry concentrated heavily on recent registrants and attempted to compare names, birth dates, addresses, and Social Security information with commercial and publicly available databases.

Hornik’s team reported that approximately 68,441 records, or about seven percent of those examined, could not be verified through the databases used in the review. Another 59,104 records, representing roughly six percent, allegedly contained Social Security numbers within ranges the researchers considered invalid. Approximately 91,504 records were associated with individuals the reviewers believed did not reside within New York City, while another 9,340 reportedly contained no Social Security number. Combined, these categories produced 228,389 flagged records, a figure exceeding Mamdani’s certified margin by more than 20,000 votes.

That numerical comparison is politically explosive, but it is not dispositive. A flagged voter record is not automatically an illegal ballot, just as a discrepancy in a bank ledger does not by itself prove embezzlement. Commercial databases can contain obsolete addresses, incomplete identity information, typographical errors, name variations, and records that have not followed citizens through marriages, divorces, relocations, or other ordinary changes. Some voters may also lack conventional Social Security information for legitimate reasons. Each questionable record must therefore be investigated individually before it can be classified as unlawful.

There is also a fundamental difference between voter registration records and ballots. A defective or outdated registration entry does not necessarily establish that the person voted, that an unlawful ballot was accepted, or that the ballot was cast for Mamdani. To overturn an election, investigators would need far more than a statistical aggregation of mismatches. They would need to connect specific ineligible voters to specific ballots, establish that the votes were illegally cast and counted, and demonstrate that the number was sufficient to alter the result.

Hornik herself has stopped short of declaring that Cuomo actually won the election. Her more circumspect argument is that the available data prevents election administrators from affirmatively demonstrating the integrity of the voter rolls. That is a serious allegation, but it is narrower than the viral assertion that 228,000 fraudulent votes were discovered. The online narrative has moved faster than the evidence, turning a collection of warning lights into a declaration that the entire engine has failed.

Rudy Giuliani has embraced the broader accusation, stating that he believes Democrats cheated and describing the Democratic Party as “the most crooked enterprise in the history of the United States.” Giuliani’s skepticism is understandable. As mayor he confronted the entrenched political machinery that had governed New York for generations and he knows that the city’s bureaucracy can be opaque, obstinate, and fiercely protective of itself. His condemnation, however, remains a political judgment rather than a judicial or administrative finding.

At present, neither the New York City Board of Elections nor the New York State Board of Elections has validated Hornik’s categories as 228,389 illegal votes. No court has ruled that Mamdani’s margin was produced by fraud. No official canvass has determined that the questioned records corresponded to unlawful ballots, much less ballots cast for one particular candidate. The certified election result therefore remains legally intact.

That does not mean the findings should be discarded. The fact that a private organization could identify more than 228,000 records it considers questionable should prompt a transparent official response. Election administrators should explain the discrepancies, disclose their voter roll maintenance procedures, and permit qualified independent experts to test the competing claims. Confidence cannot be restored by demanding blind trust. It must be earned through records, procedures, and verifiable evidence.

New York’s election system is particularly vulnerable to suspicion because the state does not generally require photographic identification from voters at polling places. It also permits extensive early and absentee voting, while voter registration databases are maintained through multiple layers of state and local bureaucracy. None of these practices proves fraud, but together they create an environment in which incomplete records and administrative mistakes can accumulate like sediment in a neglected reservoir.

The appropriate remedy is not to proclaim Mamdani illegitimate before the evidence has been tested. Nor is it acceptable for election officials and their allies to dismiss every discrepancy as harmless. New York should conduct a genuine forensic review using official voter files, address histories, citizenship information where legally available, death records, duplicate registration checks, ballot participation histories, and documented chains of custody. The methodology and conclusions should be released publicly so that both critics and defenders can examine them.

The city should also adopt stronger voter identification requirements, improve residency verification, accelerate the removal of deceased and relocated voters, and establish recurring independent audits. These are not partisan demands. An honest voter should not fear accurate rolls any more than an honest accountant fears an audit. Secure procedures protect legitimate voters by ensuring that their ballots are not diluted by error, negligence, or fraud.

Mamdani’s ideology and governing agenda make the dispute even more combustible. His promises of government operated grocery stores, rent intervention, free public transportation, expanded social programs, and increased taxation have already made him a national symbol of the Democratic Party’s socialist wing. His political views deserve rigorous opposition, but ideological hostility cannot substitute for evidentiary proof that his election was stolen.

The 228,389 records identified by Hornik represent a legitimate basis for investigation, not a completed prosecution. The figures are large enough to demand answers because they exceed the certified margin, but their significance depends entirely upon whether the underlying classifications are accurate and whether the records can be connected to unlawful votes. Until that work is completed, the responsible conclusion is neither complacency nor certitude.

New Yorkers deserve to know whether their voter rolls are accurate, whether every counted ballot was lawful, and whether election administrators can document the integrity they routinely claim. The audit has not proved that Zohran Mamdani lost the 2025 election. It has proved that New York’s election bureaucracy faces questions too consequential to answer with silence.

From the moment he hit the campaign trail and took office, President Donald J. Trump has prioritized the armed forces and supported their forgotten families. This included expanded federal job opportunities for spouses, improved occupational licensing portability across states, and greater access to remote and flexible work.

On August 3, 2026, he built on that momentum by signing an executive order establishing the President’s Military Spouse Commission, the first of its kind.

The panel is tasked with advising and assisting the president on matters affecting spouses and families. It will serve as a direct liaison between families and the White House, identifying common concerns, developing recommendations on housing, employment, healthcare, education, and deployment support, and submitting annual reports plus a final report. It may form subcommittees and will end after two years unless extended.

An estimated one million children have at least one parent on active duty.

Trump signed the order in an Oval Office ceremony attended by Sens. Tommy Tuberville and Katie Britt of Alabama, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, and several spouses.

In his remarks, the commander in chief emphasized how vital of a role: “America cannot have the strongest military in the world without the love and devotion of our remarkable military spouses who make extraordinary sacrifices for our country.” He added that the panel “will provide recommendations for improving the quality of life for military spouses so that we can better support both our military families and the entire United States armed forces.”

Gen. Caine added enthusiastically, “You think we’re strong? American military spouses are ten times stronger.”

The executive order notes that spouses are intrinsically linked to the good order, readiness, and retention of the force. They face challenges from frequent relocations, prolonged deployments, limited housing, employment barriers, and managing households alone; all of which affect family well-being and the resilience of the fighting force. These challenges have been repeatedly flagged by military families, including in Blue Star Families surveys that rank spouse employment as the top concern.

Jennifer Hegseth, wife of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, will chair the advisory, Desiree Sayle will serve as Executive Director.

Membership includes spouses of senior leaders, the service secretaries, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, service chiefs, senior enlisted advisors, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, along with Christie Mullin, wife of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

Members serve without compensation, tied to their spouses’ roles, with administrative support from the Department of War.

With hundreds of years of collective lived experience, the panel can address real-world issues with firsthand knowledge while delivering practical recommendations that boost retention and readiness.

This new panel builds on broader efforts to support service members and their families, including the one-time $1,776 “Warrior Dividend” paid to roughly 1.45 million troops in honor of the nation’s founding year, proposed pay raises of up to 7 percent for lower ranks in the fiscal 2027 budget, and a $1.5 trillion defense topline.