Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., talks with reporters after a Senate Armed Services Committee closed briefing on the Iran war, in the Capitol Visitor Center on Tuesday, March 10, 2026.
Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
Sen. Elizabeth Warren said the Department of Defense has no plan to stop President Donald Trump’s family from profiting on lucrative defense contracts in a Tuesday letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, shared exclusively with CNBC.
The letter comes after the Pentagon sent Warren a response to a January inquiry the Massachusetts Democrat sent to the department seeking answers about the agency’s contracting with the Trump children. CNBC has also reviewed the previously unreported Defense Department response, which Warren said failed to answer her questions about potential Trump family involvement in the agency’s contracting decisions.
“It failed to provide answers to the vast majority of questions that we asked regarding DoD’s decision making process for the contracts and loan guarantees referenced in our January 22, 2026 letter,” Warren wrote of the Defense Department’s response in the new letter, which was cosigned by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. “It also suggests that DoD appears to have no effective processes in place to ensure that DoD contracts are being fairly awarded to companies based on our national security and defense requirements—rather than the financial interests of the President’s family.”
The Defense Department, in its initial response to Warren, said that the Pentagon’s “[Office of Strategic Capital] is committed to upholding the highest ethical standards and ensuring that its investment decisions are free from conflicts of interest involving Department of War (DoW) personnel.”
“In addition, the Department goes beyond the minimum regulatory review requirements by mandating that DoW supervisors provide an additional review to identify any potential nexus between the filer’s official duties and the interests listed in the financial disclosure form,” the letter, written by Assistant Secretary of Defense Dane Hughes, said.
The letter from Hughes did not specifically mention the Trump children, nor did it detail how the department handles specific contracts regarding their interests. Warren, in her initial letter, asked numerous questions about DOD employees’ connections with Donald Trump Jr.
“This answer indicates that DoD appears to be oblivious to – and therefore unable to address – the potential for corruption created by the Trump family’s investments in companies that stand to benefit financially from taxpayer-funded, DoD contracts,” Warren said. “In these cases, the mechanism of potential corruption is not at all related to DoD contracting employees’ financial investments: as detailed in the letter we sent in January, that mechanism involves the President or his family having inside information or influence over DoD policies and plans, and potential political favoritism by DoD officials who want to be in the good graces of the President or his family.”
Warren’s concern over the Defense Department contracting with entities associated with Trump Jr. comes amid a raft of controversy over the first family’s business ties. Democrats, including Warren, have repeatedly warned that the Trump children’s growing business portfolio risks corrupt influence peddling with the government that the elder Trump runs.
Scrutiny has only grown after Trump Jr. and his brother, Eric Trump, backed Powerus, a drone company that is aiming to win Defense Department contracts. The DOD is spending about $1 billion in an effort to juice domestic drone production.
“Reshoring U.S. supply chains is vital to national security, and the administration’s war in Iran reveals the extent to which drones are becoming an increasingly important battlefield weapon,” Warren wrote. “But the circumstances surrounding this new merger, and the involvement of the President’s children cast a cloud of corruption and conflict of interest over any DoD contracts that this company may receive.”
When CNBC asked about Warren’s new letter, a Pentagon spokesperson replied only that, “As with all congressional correspondence, we’ll respond in writing to the Senator.”
