Defense Secretary Nominee Forms Circle of Advisers

The Pentagon has already announced the formation of a transition team for Ashton Carter, nominated to replace Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, including Hagel Chief of Staff Rexon Ryu and an Assistant Secretary of Defense, Michael Lumpkin. But Defense One’s The D Brief has been told that Carter has designated his own small team of advisers, three people who will assist him from outside of the building through a confirmation process that is expected to run through at least the third or fourth week of January.

The troika includes:

• Former Defense Business Board Chairman Michael Bayer, who sits on the Defense Science Board currently and who also worked on former Defense Secretary Robert Gates' transition, is considered Carter's point man.
• Sally Donnelly, a former reporter for Time who advised then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen and U.S. Central Command Commander Gen. Jim Mattis in the Pentagon, is also working closely with Carter.
• Dave Copp, a 20-year Navy veteran who also worked for Mullen, is also part of the small team.

Carter, the former deputy Defense secretary who spent years inside the Pentagon bureaucracy, is seen as taking a thoughtful approach to the transition. But it's also a low-key one, appropriate for someone who has spent so many years in the building and who just left last year.

Carter is relying on just a small group of trusted advisers to accompany him on this leg of the process. Although the Pentagon would have plenty of office space to designate for Carter's transition, Carter may choose to go a different route and work outside of the building for this period. Gates chose offices inside the Old Executive Office Building, the massive Gothic structure next to the White House, for his transition.

Read more about Carter and other developments in the defense world in Defense One’s The D Brief.