Anthony Tata, whose past Islamaphobic and conspiratorial statements doomed his nomination for a top Pentagon job in the first Trump administration, was grilled by senators on Tuesday in his bid to become the Pentagon's personnel chief in the second Trump administration.

During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on his nomination to be under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, Tata distanced himself from his past comments by saying they were "out of character." But he also defended more recent comments calling for purging military officers seen as disloyal to President Donald Trump and supporting using military force for law enforcement on U.S. soil.

If confirmed, Tata would oversee the health and well-being of the more than 3 million uniformed and civilian personnel working for the Defense Department. The under secretary for personnel is charged with advising the defense secretary and crafting policies on issues ranging from recruitment^[1] to child care to medical standards to pay^[2] and benefits.

Read Next: Military's 4-Star Officers to Be Reduced by 20% or More Under New Order by Hegseth^[3]

While Tata faced enough bipartisan opposition five years ago to sink his nomination for a different Pentagon job, Republicans, who can confirm Tata on their own, indicated Tuesday they've come around on him. But Democrats expressed grave concerns about his judgment, citing inflammatory social media posts.

In a post shortly after Trump's election^[4] in November, Tata said Trump should "review every 4 star appointed by (then-President Joe) Biden and thank many for their service before firing them." Tata was responding to a CNN report that said Pentagon officials^[5] were having informal conversations about how to respond if Trump were to issue an unlawful order.

The CNN article did not say four-stars were participating in the discussions, nor that military officers were considering defying legal orders, but Tata's social media post claimed that the lack of public condemnation from top generals shows that it is "under their leadership that these mutinous discussions are taking place."

Asked about the social media post Tuesday, Tata mischaracterized the CNN story as being about generals and admirals discussing disobeying lawful orders and argued the point of his post was to reinforce the Constitution.

"I was actually talking about defending the Constitution," Tata said. "The admirals and generals don't get to choose which lawful orders they follow. The admirals and generals work for the civilian leadership, and that civilian leadership is codified in Article 2 of our Constitution."

Tata later added that he "would not support any kind of blatant purge," but that "if an officer is not following the Constitution, has committed some kind of breach of his or her duty, then that should be investigated and the investigation should tell us what to do."

After several instances of Tata’s mischaracterizing the CNN report, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., read the article into the congressional record and told Tata that "I think you're missing the point."

"I respect and appreciate your military service, but your record of public statements and behavior toward individuals with whom you disagree politically is disqualifying for a position of this significance," Reed said in his opening statement.

Democrats also pressed Tata on a social media post from January^[6] where he encouraged Congress to "suspend posse comitatus" so that "elite and conventional forces" could patrol Trump's inauguration and "conduct direct action if necessary." Posse comitatus is the law that prohibits the military from conducting civilian law enforcement on U.S. soil in most cases.

Tata on Tuesday claimed that his reference to posse comitatus was in relation to U.S. border security despite the fact that the post was about the inauguration and included conspiratorial musings that elements of the National Guard^[7], Defense Department and other agencies are "compromised at a minimum by hatred of the incoming administration."

Tata said he stood by "the idea that we need better border security," though he added he does "not know" if posse comitatus should be suspended. He also acknowledged that he had "no information" to support his allegations that members of the National Guard and Pentagon were compromised despite publicly saying so.

Tata is a retired Army^[8] brigadier general whose post-military career includes serving as a school district administrator in Washington, D.C., and North Carolina and as North Carolina's secretary of transportation, a job he abruptly resigned from.

More recently, he has been a steady presence on Fox News as a political and military commentator.

During the first Trump administration in 2020, he was nominated to be under secretary of defense for policy, essentially the No. 3 position in the Pentagon.

But his nomination was withdrawn after the Senate Armed Services Committee, also controlled by Republicans at the time, abruptly canceled his confirmation hearing amid a mounting controversy over incendiary past statements. After the nomination was withdrawn, Trump installed Tata as a Pentagon adviser^[9] who didn't need Senate confirmation and later appointed him acting^[10] under secretary for policy.

Among the statements that doomed Tata's previous nomination were social media posts that called former President Barack Obama a "terrorist leader," said California Democratic Reps. Maxine Waters and Nancy Pelosi "have always been the same violent extremists" and floated a conspiracy theory that former CIA Director John Brennan used a coded tweet to order Trump's assassination.

"Those were out-of-character comments," Tata said Tuesday, noting that he submitted an apology letter to the committee in 2020. "I regret making those comments."

While the apology letter was not enough to save his nomination back then, Republicans brushed off the past controversy on Tuesday.

"The thing I've learned about Tony is that he takes responsibility for his words and actions, he learns from his past mistakes, which is a testament of a good leader, and I think you'll see that on display today," Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said in introducing Tata at the hearing.

Tillis no longer sits on the Armed Services Committee, but he did in 2020, and he has been seen as a potential swing vote on some Trump nominees this year.

Related: Senators Voice 'Deep Concerns' About Trump's Pick for Air Force Under Secretary^[11]

A newly released watchdog investigation into President Joe Biden's mission last year to deliver aid to Gaza via a military logistics system known as JLOTS has confirmed years of cost cuts left the system seriously imperiled and military officials also failed to properly plan for the effort.

In the spring of 2024, in the wake of a massive Israeli campaign that left much of Gaza destroyed, Biden ordered that the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, or JLOTS, be used to construct a pier in the war-torn region to deliver millions of tons of aid to starving residents.

The pier, operated by the Army^[1] and Navy^[2], ultimately helped offload nearly 20 million pounds of aid. But a stream of issues, breakdowns, injured service members and delays led to concerns about the Army's ability to build the piers and the health of the service's watercraft community.

Read Next: Veterans Urge Reform as VA Undergoes Major Changes and Faces Ongoing Health-Care Challenges^[3]

Now, the Defense Department inspector general, in a report released Tuesday^[4], found the Army and Navy didn't put enough money into maintaining the systems and U.S. Transportation Command -- a top Pentagon command overseen by a four-star general -- didn't do enough to set standards or minimum requirements for the two services.

The Pentagon "possessed the capability to conduct JLOTS operations and exercises, but reductions in capacity resulted in challenges to effectively perform these missions," according to the report.

However, the findings are not new to those who worked in and around the JLOTS systems.

A Military.com investigation^[5] found the Army's watercraft elements may not have been ready for prime time. The capability, which had lingered in obscurity for a half-century, was suddenly stress-tested when it was tasked with one of the Pentagon's highest-profile missions in years.

Several experts and former community insiders told Military.com last year that the system, while capable, has suffered from funding shortfalls throughout the 20 years of the Global War on Terrorism.

The report confirmed that, noting that in the last 10 years -- from 2014 to 2024 -- the Army cut about $23 million from its operations and maintenance budget for the system. The Navy cut $69 million.

The report said the cuts "coincided with reductions by both services to reduce the quantity of JLOTS-capable units and equipment" and that "the reductions created significant challenges for each service's ability to meet future JLOTS requirements."

According to a now-retired Army warrant officer who served on the JLOTS vessels, the craft that are still in service are so old that some still have engines that say they were built in "West Germany."

In the wake of the Gaza pier mission, also known as Operation Neptune Solace, investigators found the Army showed that its watercraft fleet had dropped six vessels -- from 73 craft in November 2023 to 67 in November 2024.

"The Army did not provide an explanation for why its reported total watercraft count dropped," the report noted.

Both the Army and Navy also struggled to gather enough people to get the mission going.

The Army unit tasked with carrying out the mission, the 7th Transportation Brigade, or 7TBX, "lacked sufficient, certified, Army mariners to meet manning requirements on some Army watercraft and struggled to keep its assigned mariners."

"According to 7TBX officials, manning shortages delayed the deployment^[6] of some Army watercraft for Operation Neptune Solace," investigators found.

On the Navy's side, its unit, Naval Beach Group 1, "had to pull together every person they could to sufficiently staff vessels in accordance with Navy requirements," the report said.

Meanwhile, when the Army invited the media to see some of the ships depart for the mission^[7] in March 2024, leaders from the community made no mention of the issues and the 7TBX commander, Col. Samuel Miller, even boasted that the Army's first vessel left "36 hours after the president made that statement in the State of the Union address" that kicked off the mission.

Military leaders also failed to set up the mission for success, and the report found there were serious shortfalls in the planning stages of the mission.

"Operation Neptune Solace and [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command] plans did not contain mission‑specific information necessary to successfully conduct a JLOTS operation," the report found.

Furthermore, in interviews with investigators, both Army and Navy officials said "combatant command planners generally did not seek input from JLOTS subject matter experts in the units on the development of operational plans" and, thus, they "did not fully identify or consider mission-specific requirements, such as beach conditions, average sea states, and other factors likely to affect the ability to successfully conduct a JLOTS operation."

As a result, the pier broke apart several times^[8] and had to be towed out of the area, suspending aid delivery. In one instance, the foul weather resulted in several Army boats and their crews being stranded on the beach in Gaza. While the soldiers were evacuated fairly quickly^[9], it took several days for the Israelis to return all the boats into the water.

All told, the report notes that 62 service members were injured during the operation, though the report noted that all those injuries occurred during the performance of duties, off duty or from preexisting medical conditions.

At the time of the mission, officials only revealed three injuries -- but one was so severe that the service member never returned to duty^[10]. The circumstances of those injuries were also never explained.

The report says that the Navy reported damage to 27 watercraft and equipment totaling approximately $31 million.

A fuller accounting of the injuries and equipment damage was made available to investigators at the request of Congress, but the report placed that data in a classified section.

"We have provided the classified annex as a separate document to those with a specific need to know and review the information in it," the section read.

Despite the issues, many of which were known at the time of the operation, Pentagon officials regularly stressed^[11] that the pier delivered some 20 millions pounds of aid -- food that would have otherwise not have made it to the war-torn region. At one point, the pier ended up providing the second-highest volume of aid^[12] from any entry point into Gaza.

Related: As the Gaza Pier Is Packed Up, Experts Worry About What It Portends for a War in the Pacific^[13]