The Senate approved the confirmation of Christine Wormuth as Army secretary by unanimous consent Wednesday – before the body canceled her confirmation just hours later in a strange development.
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced the reversal Wednesday, according to CSPAN footage of the proceedings. He didn’t immediately elaborate on the decision.
“As in executive session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate vitiate the previous action on Executive Calendar 135,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.
The Democrat deleted a tweet he had posted, hailing Wormuth’s confirmation, Defense.
Last month, President Biden nominated Wormuth, who would have been the first woman to serve as secretary of the Army if she was confirmed by the Senate.
Forbes reporter Andrew Solender tweeted that Schumer received unanimous consent to “vitiate,” or rescind, the confirmation.
Just hours earlier, Wormuth called the confirmation an honor.
“I am so honored to be confirmed as Secretary of the Army! Serving in this role is a tremendous privilege and responsibility!” she wrote on Twitter.
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Roll Call reporter Andrew Clevenger tweeted that the move “looks more like a procedural hiccup than a threat to her historic confirmation.”
Wormuth led Biden’s transition team at the Pentagon. She previously served as the undersecretary of defense for policy and the senior director for defense policy at the National Security Council during the Obama administration. Her most recent role was as director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corp., a federally funded think tank.
