President Donald Trump and acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan (right) during a Cabinet meeting in January. Shanahan is still in the mix to head the Defense Department, but recent events and his own missteps haven't done him any favors. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Defense Shanahan’s nomination to head Pentagon on ice An investigation into the acting defense secretary has stalled his hopes of winning President Donald Trump's nod.

Patrick Shanahan’s expected promotion to permanently head the Defense Department has stalled amid an ethics investigation and a series of unimpressive public performances, according to four people with knowledge of internal White House discussions.

Shanahan, who has served as the Pentagon’s acting chief since Jim Mattis resigned in December, has also been hampered by the deadly crashes of two airliners manufactured by his former employer, Boeing — the company that's also at the heart of his ethics problems.


The sources aware of the White House discussions believe Shanahan is still in the mix for the job, but they say recent events and his own missteps haven't done him any favors with President Donald Trump. And some said his fate will remain uncertain until the Defense Department's inspector general finishes a probe into allegations that Shanahan has privately boosted Boeing during meetings at the Pentagon.

With so much scrutiny on the crashes that killed a total of 346 people, it's enough to have “the Boeing stench on you” to hurt chances for a nomination right now, a former Defense Department official told POLITICO.

“The IG investigation has slowed the process down and there are quite a few of us who want to see the report before moving forward, including President Trump,” a senior White House official said. “He’s paying close attention, as he has always done with those he’s considering for top positions.”

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The White House had no immediate comment Friday, and the Pentagon said Shanahan's only priority is doing the job Trump appointed him to.

“Acting Secretary Shanahan will continue to serve at the discretion of President Trump," Shanahan spokesperson Lt. Col. Joseph Buccino said. "He remains solely focused on leading the Department’s operations, improving the lethality of our Nation’s military, and ensuring the highest-quality care for our servicemembers and their Families.”

In addition to his Boeing ties, Shanahan's prospects suffered because of his rocky performances at last month's Munich Security Conference and at a Senate hearing last week, sources familiar with the deliberations said.

Two other sources, both senior Republican Capitol Hill aides, confirmed that Shanahan's expected nomination has been delayed but said they did not know why.

Trump had been poised to nominate Shanahan after the Munich conference, according to the former Defense Department official and two Republican aides. And he was prepared to do it again after Shanahan's appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the two GOP aides said.

But Trump “cooled” on Shanahan after The Washington Post reported after the conference that the acting secretary had clashed with lawmakers over the president’s decision to pull all U.S. troops from Syria, the ex-Defense Department official said.

"There have been rumors of potential nominations every couple of days in the last eight weeks," said a person close to Shanahan. "I personally have never seen any specific plan or intent from the White House that they were ready to go and pull the trigger. So far as I can tell it's sort of a self-licking rumor ice cream cone."

Shanahan’s Senate appearance last week was considered a second public audition, but he failed to forcefully push back against Democrats' attacks on Trump’s plan to raid anti-drug-trafficking and military construction money to pay for a southern border wall. Instead, Shanahan repeatedly deferred to Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford and Pentagon comptroller David Norquist.

“The hearing plus the Boeing thing is why you’re hearing it’s on ice and that’s my understanding, too,” a former U.S. official said.

The person close to Shanahan acknowledged that his performance was lackluster.

"That was his second hearing that he's ever done so the goal going into it was just to get on base, not hit a home run," the person said. "He got on base, no major fumbles." He added that there are "clearly opportunities to continue to improve in the future."

Then on Wednesday, the Defense Department's inspector general's office announced it was investigating Shanahan’s alleged private comments championing Boeing. The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint last week with the IG, relying heavily on a January report by POLITICO in which current and former officials said Shanahan had disparaged rival contractor Lockheed Martin in private meetings and held up Boeing as a shining example.

Shanahan, who worked at Boeing for 31 years, signed an ethics agreement when he came to the Pentagon in 2017 and pledged to recuse himself from decisions involving the company. But his ties to the company are well-known — once, when Trump couldn’t remember Shanahan’s name, the president referred to him as “the Boeing guy,” a former White House official told POLITICO in January.

Shanahan had been senior vice president of Boeing's commercial airplane programs, where he managed profit and loss for all 700-series aircraft — including the 737 MAX 8, the model that crashed in both recent air disasters in Indonesia and Ethiopia. But it’s believed his involvement with the MAX 8 program was tangential at best from his level.

One of the people said a third chance for Shanahan to get the job arrived March 15, when Trump was expected to announce the nomination during a visit to the Pentagon. But a 737 MAX flown by Ethiopian Airlines crashed on March 10, calling new attention to a Boeing software change that aviation experts say could send a plane into a fatal dive.

The president's Pentagon visit “was in the aftermath of the hearing and then the Boeing stuff and now the 737 news and all that jazz,” the former official said. “All of that came together to say, yeah, we’re going to put this on ice and it may be not possible at all.”

A Senate Republican source familiar with the matter agreed that Shanahan is on hold for a “host of reasons," including the "Boeing investigations, ongoing concerns about Boeing favoritism and preferences at the department, speaking ill of Lockheed.”

None of the current and former officials said Shanahan is out of the running. Instead they expect Shanahan to be a placeholder while the IG's investigation plays out. The former U.S. official said Shanahan’s standing had improved before the Senate hearing, and that skeptical senators were starting to come around after the Munich debacle.

If Shanahan doesn't get the job, Army Secretary Mark Esper and Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie would likely return as possible contenders. Yet two sources said the White House is hesitant to move Wilkie because he has proven effective at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Another challenge for Shanahan comes Tuesday, when he appears before the House Armed Services Committee, whose chairman, Washington state Democrat Adam Smith, is a critic of Trump's policies. Shanahan will almost certainly face harsher questioning than he did before the Senate, especially since the Pentagon released its list of construction projects that could be deferred to pay for the wall.

“Next week is going to go way worse,” said the Senate Republican source. “If Shanahan didn’t do well in a Republican hearing, he’s definitely not going to do well in a Democratic-dominated Adam Smith hearing.”

Wesley Morgan and Eliana Johnson contributed to this report.