![]() ![]() ![]() And the despair was well-founded: In the eight months since Dunford turned down the job, Pelosi and McConnell have never again been close to agreeing on a chair. Once Dunford walked away, oversight advocates were once again in despair and back to square one. “I’m disappointed we couldn’t figure out how to waive those requirements, because I believe I could have acted in a good-faith, nonpartisan way.” “I would have done it, were I at a different stage in life, and were the requirements different,” said Dunford, who retired from a career in the military in late 2019. He offered to serve as chair without compensation, but said that proposal didn’t work out. The former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told The Daily Beast that he initially accepted the offer last summer but later backed out when he learned he would have to relinquish his board positions at corporations, such as defense contractor Lockheed Martin, and various nonprofits-all of which could have received relief funds. Ultimately, Dunford didn’t want it either. One aide described the chairmanship to The Daily Beast as having “a lot of suck and not a lot of upside.” To that point, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell-both required to sign off on a chairperson for the Congressional Oversight Commission-had not, in fact, agreed on a candidate. It was four months into America’s muddled and chaotic coronavirus response, and lawmakers finally thought they had found the right man to track a half-trillion dollar pot of emergency COVID relief loans: former Gen. Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast ![]()
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