We Do Love The Troops

This is the kind of thing which causes Democrats to moan about media imbalance - fairly! - without (usually) stepping up to play their necessary role. Yes, if a Democrat did this, the howls of rage would reverberate for weeks, with Lindsey Graham on 7 channels simultaneously, and Jake "Troop Defender" Tapper would never stop talking about it. But someone has to be "Lindsey Graham" here.

The tension between some Coast Guard officials and Noem began after a 23-year-old Coast Guardsman went overboard into the Pacific Ocean from the cutter Waesche on Feb. 4 last year, shortly after the Senate confirmed Noem into her role, according to the two U.S. officials, the Coast Guard official and the former Coast Guard official.

The Coast Guard had surged ships and aircraft to the Pacific to find the guardsman. Hours into the search, Noem learned that a Coast Guard C-130 that was supposed to fly detained migrants from California to Texas was among the aircraft over the Pacific looking for the missing guardsman, and she intervened, according to the two U.S. officials and the Coast Guard official.

Noem verbally instructed the acting commandant of the Coast Guard, Adm. Kevin Lunday, to pull the plane off the search and rescue mission so it would not miss the immigrant flight as part of the DHS’ so-called Alien Expulsion Operations, according to the two U.S. officials and the Coast Guard official. Lunday notified the National Command Center, which ordered the C-130 to fly to San Diego while other aircraft and ships involved in the search continued, according to one of the U.S. officials and the current Coast Guard official.