[burfog]

One of the troubles is that congress can't trust the army to admit the truth. Congress must guess.

You see, the army is controlled by the president. The president may be from a different political party or even be following his own personal agenda. The army must strictly obey orders according to the chain of command, and the president is at the top.

If the president dislikes tanks, he can order the army to place tanks into storage and claim that the tanks are not wanted. Congress is left wondering if the people in the army are stating their true expert opinions or just following orders.

Here is a real case that leaked out:

https://www.military.com/dodbuzz/2015/01/16/general-praising... https://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/01/26/generals-a10-...

So yes, the military being ordered to lie to congress is a real thing.

[snowwrestler]

What? No. In case anyone wants an update on this case from 2015, that general was fired. He was not implementing some sort of secret presidential policy with his remarks.

The A10 is an example of Congress imposing civilian priorities on the military. Despite its declining military utility, it's a popular plane, so Congress won't let the military sunset it. It has nothing to do with the president ordering the military to lie to Congress.

You're not even legally correct... while the president is the commander in chief, Congress has oversight of military spending under Article I, Section 8. An order to lie to Congress about spending would be an illegal order, and military personnel are not compelled to follow illegal orders.

[burfog]

He was fired, though that isn't proof he got in trouble for what he was doing or that he wasn't ordered to do that. He did things in a ham-handed way and it leaked, causing a PR disaster.

The F22 looks to be a similar case. Here we don't have a crude effort getting leaked, but that doesn't mean the situation was any more legitimate. It very much seems that Obama was pushing to kill the F22 and the military marched to his orders.