Eric Chewning is appointed new chief of staff to acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan.

“For sure [Shanahan] needs help in running the building now,” said Jim Townsend, a former Pentagon official. “For a secretary of defense, you need a chief of staff who you can trust and knows the bureaucratic politics of the building,” Foreign Policy reported quoting the official.

According to the source, Eric Chewning was a senior U.S. Defense Department official who manages industrial policy.