The Senate Armed Services Committee held a confirmation hearing on July 14, 2026 for four Pentagon nominees, including Jules W. Hurst III as Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), per the committee's official notice. Hurst, acting comptroller until May 2026, told senators he would push for a clean financial audit by 2028, per The Fiscal Times.
Who Was Before the Committee?
The panel covered the department's money and its space portfolios in one session. The committee's notice lists the nominees as Jules W. Hurst III for Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller); Richard M. O'Malley for Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment; Dr. L. Roger Mason, Jr. for Director of the National Reconnaissance Office; and Dr. Erich D. Hernandez-Baquero for Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration, at a 9:30 a.m. hearing in Room SD-G50 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, per the official hearing record.
What Did Hurst Tell Senators?
Two commitments defined his testimony. On the audit, he "said that, if confirmed, he would work toward having the Pentagon pass a clean audit by 2028," a target that would require the department's first successful financial audit after decades of adverse opinions. On war costs, Hurst said he "does not have an updated number because he stopped performing the duties of acting comptroller," having previously put the figure at "$29 billion at the time he left the acting comptroller position," per The Fiscal Times report of July 14, 2026. He also "argued that the Defense Department requires a generational investment by Congress to update decades-old systems," the report notes.
Why Does the Comptroller Slot Matter?
The comptroller controls budget execution across the department: apportionment of funds, reprogramming requests that shift money between accounts, and the audit remediation Hurst made the centerpiece of his testimony. The office had been run by an acting official since August 2025, per the nominee's own account of when he began and ended the acting role, and a confirmed CFO with Senate standing is better positioned to push the 2028 audit deadline and the financial-system overhaul he described to the committee. The timing of any floor vote remained unscheduled as of the hearing date.
What Else Rides on the Same Hearing?
The three other nominations give the session weight beyond the CFO slot. Roger Mason's nomination to direct the National Reconnaissance Office places a congressional veteran of intelligence oversight in charge of the nation's reconnaissance satellite portfolio, while Erich Hernandez-Baquero's nomination as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration would hand him the statutory space acquisition executive role at a moment of sustained growth in military space budgets. Richard O'Malley's deputy under secretary post covers acquisition and sustainment, the department's largest procurement portfolio.
Committee practice is to report nominations favorably or hold them within days of a hearing, and the July 14 session positioned all four for a committee vote before the August recess. The Senate calendar, not the hearing record, now sets the pace; what is documented is the panel, the pledges, and the numbers Hurst put on the record, $29 billion in prior war costs as of his departure from the acting role and a 2028 target for the department's first clean audit.
