Senate Republicans quietly killed an effort to bar the Pentagon from investing in companies tied to President Donald Trump, his Cabinet or their families, rejecting a Democratic amendment targeting conflict-of-interest concerns.
The amendment failed 14-13 on a party-line vote last week during the Senate Armed Services Committee’s closed-door markup of its $1.15 trillion National Defense Authorization Act, according to a committee vote tally released Wednesday. Republicans said they rejected a partisan attack on Trump that would have undermined support for the bill.
“It just seemed like a shot at the president, but the NDAA is for serious stuff,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota) said. “We keep all the cheap shots out, and we think the president and most of the other members would have considered that a cheap shot, and that’s not what the NDAA is all about.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) confirmed that her amendment would have prohibited the Pentagon’s equity investment arm, the Office of Strategic Capital, from making investments in any company in which top executive branch officials or their immediate family members hold a significant ownership stake. Details of the measure haven’t been previously reported.
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“There was not even a debate,” Warren told NOTUS. “This is the most corrupt administration in American history. Every amendment that might curb Trump’s corruption even slightly was radioactive to Republicans.”
The vote came amid Democratic scrutiny of Pentagon loans and contracts awarded to companies connected to Trump allies and family members, including firms backed by Donald Trump Jr.’s venture capital firm and transactions that have raised questions about the financial interests of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s family.
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona), who voted for the amendment, said lawmakers were trying to bar taxpayer-backed investments from benefiting Trump’s family.
“We’re trying to be responsible with taxpayer money, and try to put in some restrictions, so it doesn’t continue to flow to the Trump family,” Kelly told NOTUS. He called the administration “corrupt” and accused Trump of profiting from public office.
The amendment appears to have been prompted in part by concerns surrounding Vulcan Elements, a rare-earth magnet company that received a conditional $620 million loan commitment from the Office of Strategic Capital after receiving an investment from 1789 Capital, a firm where Trump Jr. is a partner.
Warren and other Democrats have questioned whether companies linked to Trump Jr. received favorable treatment, while Pentagon officials and the company have denied political influence in the process.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Michigan), who also voted for the amendment, suggested Republicans rejected it out of concern for how Trump would react.
“Over and over we heard in the NDAA markup a number of my Republican colleagues express concern that they didn’t want to insult the president, they didn’t want to send a negative message to the president, they didn’t want to offend the president, or they were scared of his reaction,” Slotkin told NOTUS. “To me, this one fell in that category.”
The proposal mirrored a broader Democratic effort to impose conflict-of-interest restrictions on government-backed investment programs. An amendment raised by Warren with similar language aimed at Defense Production Act authorities advanced through the House Financial Services Committee with bipartisan support.
Warren did not rule out reviving the proposal as a floor amendment when the Senate takes up the bill.
All but four Senate Armed Services Democrats, with some saying that the president is waging unauthorized military action against Iran and elsewhere, voted against the NDAA.
Republicans were willing to approve significant guardrails in the 1,562-page bill. One provision would restrict Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget if the Pentagon doesn’t give Congress more details about the deadly bombing of an Iranian girls school in February and full videos of lethal strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats in the waters off Latin America.
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