Trump submits nominees for SO/LIC, Navy general counsel

President Trump has submitted his choices for the Pentagon's top civilian special operations official as well as the Navy's senior lawyer.

According to a White House announcement, Trump has nominated Owen West to become the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict. West most recently served as a partner and head of global natural gas trading and co-head of global power trading at Goldman Sachs & Co., "where he designed and managed this international risk business."

West has also served as a Marine Corps infantry platoon commander, reconnaissance platoon leader, and combat adviser, and was twice deployed to Iraq. A graduate of Harvard University and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, West has also been a director of the Positive Coaching Alliance, a director of the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Additionally, Trump nominated Charles Stimson to be the Navy's general counsel. Stimson is a senior legal fellow and manager of the National Security Law Program at the Heritage Foundation, where he leads the foundation's research efforts related to national security law issues including the Law of Armed Conflict, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, military law, War Powers, military commissions, and U.S. detention and interrogation policy, according to the White House announcement. He also specializes in criminal law and homeland security.

Stimson is also a Naval Reserve captain in the Navy Judge Advocate General Corps, and is currently the commanding officer of the Navy Appellate Government unit. He previously served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs in the George W. Bush administration, and also was an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

Stimson has also worked as a vice president for private equity mergers and acquisitions at Marsh McLennan. He earned a B.A. from Kenyon College, a J.D. from the George Mason University School of Law, and attended Harvard University and Exeter University in England.