White House submits new Air Force general counsel nominee

The White House this evening announced President Trump's intent to nominate Thomas Ayres to be Air Force general counsel, a position for which its original choice, David Ehrhart, was withdrawn last September.

A retired Army major general, Ayres most recently served as that service's deputy judge advocate general. Before that, Ayres served as head of the Army Legal Services Agency, the chief judge of the Army Court of Criminal Appeals, and the commander and commandant of the Judge Advocate General's Legal Center and School, according to a White House statement.

Additionally, the administration announced the president's intent to nominate James Stewart to become assistant secretary of defense for manpower and reserve affairs and Jackie Wolcott to be the U.S. representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Stewart most recently served as the economic development committee chair on the North Carolina Military Affairs Commission "where he provided advice, counsel, and recommendations to the Governor and Legislature on North Carolina's military installations," according to the White House. A retired Air Force Reserve major general, Stewart's last assignment was military executive of the defense secretary's Reserve Forces Policy Board.

In addition to being the U.S. representative to the IAEA, Wolcott would also be U.S. representative to the United Nations' Vienna, Austria office if Congress confirms her.

Most recently, Wolcott has served as a commissioner of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom since 2016, and before that she was the commission's executive director from 2010-2015, according to the White House. She has also held a number of special envoy positions in the disarmament and nonproliferation realm, including U.S. representative to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Switzerland from 2003 to 2006.