Senate Confirms First Openly Gay Army Secretary

Senate Confirms First Openly Gay Army Secretary (Source Yahoo) The Senate today confirmed Eric Fanning to be secretary of the Army, making him the first openly gay leader of a U.S. military branch. The confirmation of Fanning, who has been serving as the acting Army Secretary since November 2015, was eight months in the making. After President Obama nominated Fanning for the post back in September 2015, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) put a hold on the nomination in an effort to pressure the administration against moving detainees from the  Guantanamo Bay,  Cuba detention facility to a military base in his home state, Fort Leavenworth, as the White House had considered doing. On Tuesday, Roberts came to the floor to announce that the  Department of Defense had assured him that there was insufficient time left in President Obama’s tenure to execute such a detainee transfer to the mainland United States. “I believe that because of last week, in a private meeting with Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work, I received the assurances I needed to hear to release my hold on Mr. Fanning,” Roberts said on the Senate floor just before the unanimous vote to confirm Fanning. “Practically speaking, the clock has run out for the president,” he continued. The vote to confirm Fanning was by unanimous consent, meaning every senator agreed to support his confirmation before it came to the Senate floor. Roberts added that he never had any personal animus against Fanning and that he believes he will do an excellent job as Secretary of the Army.

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