Pentagon removing Israel planner from Joint Staff, launching probe after JNS scoop
“He will no longer be on the joint staff while the matter is being investigated,” a Pentagon official told JNS of Col. Nathan McCormack.
Hours after JNS broke the news that Col. Nathan McCormack, the Levant and Egypt branch chief at the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s J5 planning directorate, has long posted anti-Israel statements on a semi-anonymous public social-media account, a Joint Staff official at the Pentagon told JNS it is “aware of the situation” and “looking into the matter.”
“The information on the X account does not reflect the position of the Joint Staff or the Department of Defense,” the Pentagon official told JNS. “The individual is being returned to his service while the matter is being investigated.”
Returning to service means that “he will no longer be on the joint staff while the matter is being investigated,” the official said.
“We went through and looked at the hyperlinks and the content, so we were able to see the content, and we’re essentially assigning an investigating officer to look into the matter,” the official told JNS. “Our global alliances and partnerships are vital to our national security, enhancing our collective defense, deterrence and operational reach.”
The Pentagon official told JNS about the probe shortly after the social media account was disabled.
Among the posts, which have been archived, are references to “Netanyahu and his Judeo-supremacist cronies,” to Washington having “overwhelmingly” enabled Israel’s “bad behavior” and to pro-Israel activists in the United States prioritizing “support for Israel over our actual foreign interests.”
A Defense Department contractor who has interacted with McCormack described the postings as “dangerous.”
“This is the kind of bitter oversharing I’d expect from someone who doesn’t know better,” the contractor told JNS. “But at his level and under his own name and likeness? It’s mind-boggling.”
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