Relatively little was publicly known about Dan Driscoll before he appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday as President Donald Trump’s nominee for Army secretary, other than that he was a friend and law school classmate of Vice President JD Vance. Still, the Army 1st lieutenant-turned-businessman sailed through his confirmation hearing with few fireworks.
Senators from both parties expressed their appreciation that Driscoll, 38, had taken the time to sit down with them in their offices before the hearing.
One was Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., whose son attended Yale Law School with Driscoll, and who read an endorsement of the candidate at the start of the hearing.
“As a lawyer, we follow the facts and the law, and that’s what Dan Driscoll will do as secretary of the Army,” Blumenthal said.
He said that both his son and Jake Sullivan—President Joe Biden’s national security adviser and another Yale classmate of Driscoll’s—“assured me that he’s a person willing to listen, to learn and to work in a bipartisan way, to put our soldiers first.”
During questioning, Driscoll offered his support to expand the Army’s use of drones, pointing to the cost inefficiency of the service’s current air defense systems.
“We can no longer shoot $4-million missiles to take down a $400 drone – that math, just simple math, doesn’t add up,” he said. “We are going to have to find solutions, whether it’s directed energy or whatever it is, that can have a cost-effective way to provide security.”
Driscoll also urged the Army to do a better job communicating with the American public about what the service has to offer beyond recruiting bonuses and benefits like the GI bill.
“I enlisted because I wanted to go serve my country,” he said. “And I think young people stand by ready for us to tell that story again in a compelling way, and if confirmed, I look forward to working with you to tell that story.”
The hearing’s tone and tenor was markedly different from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s testimony two weeks earlier. While both candidates have limited experience managing organizations, Driscoll hasn’t faced any public allegations of personal or professional misconduct.
He served in the Army as a cavalry scout platoon leader with the 10th Mountain Division, according to his records, from 2007 to 2011, with a deployment to Iraq in 2009.
From there he attended Yale Law, then worked as an investment banker. He also ran unsuccessfully in a Republican congressional primary in 2020, seeking the seat vacated by Mark Meadows in his move to become Trump’s chief of staff.
But like Hegseth, Driscoll faced questioning over his willingness to carry out unlawful orders.
In the past, Trump’s suggestions have included declaring martial law and deploying the 82nd Airborne Division to put down peaceful protests in Washington, D.C., or to shoot protestors in the knees, as former Defense Secretary Mark Esper detailed in his 2022 memoir.
“I reject the premise of the question, Senator, that he would [issue an unlawful order], but I would not,” he told Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill. “I would only follow lawful orders…and constitutional ones.”
The armed services committee has not yet announced when it will vote on whether to advance Driscoll’s nomination, which would then move to a full Senate vote.
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