confirmed so i guess -- my guess is this is the appropriate course of action. but why did it reach this point mid-june when this could have been resolved six months ago. >> and i'm told president trump on the way to marine one on the way to orlando just said he will most likely nominate army secretary mark esper to fill the role. who knows. phil, you've been through the confirmation process. shanahan was confirmed by the senate as jeff pointed out to serve as deputy secretary of defense in 2017. would this not have come up then? a lot of media were chasing this story and it had popped up because there were police reports of both incidents. >> sure. but let's make sure we distinguish between what came up in the security process and prevent you politically from going through a nomination process on the hill. by the way, i with drew my nomination in 2009 and i had a top-secret clearance because i was going to be embarrassed by a senate committee. i said no, i'm out. this is about a clearance process that looks at things