A top Pentagon official, retired Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata, has tested positive for coronavirus, according to two people familiar with the matter, the second time the COVID-19 outbreak has hit senior ranks of the U.S. military.
Tata, 61, was appointed to the position of performing the duties of under secretary of defense for policy last week amid a flurry of leadership changes President Donald Trump made at the Pentagon.
A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment.
It wasn’t immediately clear when Tata was last briefing other top officials, but he was in a meeting with some of them, including acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, Deputy Defense Secretary David Norquist and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley as well as other this week.
Miller spent his day Wednesday visiting troops in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and touring the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia, with his new chief of staff, Kash Patel. Tata wasn’t on the trip.
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