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Lauren Toms

lmeier@washingtontimes.com

Lauren Toms is a national security reporter for The Washington Times, covering national security committees on Capitol Hill, foreign affairs, defense, and diplomacy. She began covering politics at CNN during the 2016 presidential election, working closely with the national security and justice teams, and later joined Axios as an editor specializing in international and military coverage.
Lauren holds a master's degree in U.S. law from Washington University in St. Louis school of law, and a bachelor's degree in journalism and mass communications from the George Washington University school of media and public affairs. She can be reached at ltoms@washingtontimes.com.

Articles by Lauren Toms

OSLO, Norway (June 25, 2018) — Kenneth J. Braithwaite, U.S. ambassador to Norway, boards the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Bainbridge (DDG 96) during a scheduled port visit to Oslo, Norway, June 25, 2018. Bainbridge, homeported at Naval Station Norfolk, is conducting naval operations in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations in support of U.S. national security interests in Europe and Africa. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Theron J. Godbold/Released)

Kenneth Braithwaite, Navy secretary nominee, Trump campaign support behind delay, backers say

President Trump's Navy secretary pick seems to be slowly sinking. The president tapped U.S. Ambassador to Norway Kenneth Braithwaite, a retired admiral and former naval aviator, for the post three months ago, but key lawmakers on Capitol Hill told The Washington Times that they have yet to hold customary one-on-one meetings with the nominee and confirmed that the White House hasn't sent the formal paperwork to move the nomination forward.

February 26, 2020
Defense Secretary Mark Esper listens during a news conference with South Korean National Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo at Pentagon in Washington, Monday, Feb. 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Mark Esper likely to face heat in Pentagon budget hearing

Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper will face a congressional gauntlet on Wednesday as he makes his first public defense of President Trump's Pentagon budget request, likely to face questions on a range of hot-button issues from shipbuilding cuts and troop withdrawals in Africa and Afghanistan to the president's decision — again — to tap the Pentagon's budget to pay for his wall along the border with Mexico.

February 25, 2020
President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he leaves the White House, Sunday, Feb. 23, 2020, in Washington, en route to India. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Donald Trump praises Afghanistan peace deal with Taliban

President Trump expressed fresh optimism Sunday about the prospects for a lasting peace deal with the Taliban, as a weeklong reduction in violence pact with the militant group entered its third day without reports of any major incidents in Afghanistan.

February 23, 2020
in this Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2019, file photo, Afghan security personnel gather at the site of a car bomb attack in Kabul, Afghanistan. Afghanistan will need vast amounts of foreign funding to keep its government afloat through 2024, a U.S. agency said Thursday, even as foreign donors are increasingly angry over the cost of debilitating corruption and the U.S. seeks a peace deal with Taliban to withdraw its troops. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)

U.S., Taliban strike ‘understanding’ for peace agreement

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday announced U.S. negotiators and the Taliban have reached an "understanding" to decrease violence in Afghanistan, in a move that brings both sides closer to an agreement to end America's longest war.

February 21, 2020
Pedestrians walk past representations of the U.S. and Israeli flags pasted on the ground on Enqelab-e-Eslami (Islamic Revolution) street in downtown Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Feb. 13, 2020. Thousands of Iranian candidates approved to run in parliamentary elections kicked off their campaigns Thursday ahead of next week's vote, even after authorities barred thousands of others from running, mainly reformists and moderates. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Apathy, anger cast shadow over Iranian parliamentary vote

Iran's embattled clerical leadership faces a key test in parliamentary elections Friday, the first such test since President Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear accord and launched an intense diplomatic, military and economic pressure campaign against Tehran.

February 20, 2020
In this Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2019, file photo, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., speaks during the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing on Venezuela at Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

Trump administration justification for Soleimani strike leaves some Democrats seething

The White House quietly released its formal justification for the Jan. 3 drone strike that killed a top Iranian general near Baghdad's airport, but the argument failed to satisfy skeptics on Capitol Hill who say the reasons for the attack keep shifting and the legal theory authorizing the mission was, in the words of one powerful Democratic House chairman, "absurd."

February 16, 2020
In this May 28, 2019, photo, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban group's top political leader, second left, arrives with other members of the Taliban delegation for talks in Moscow, Russia. U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad held on Saturday, Dec. 7, 2019, the first official talks with Afghanistan's Taliban since last September when President Donald Trump declared a near-certain peace deal with the insurgents dead. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko) **FILE**

Eliot Engel warns Afghan agreement depends on Taliban’s commitment

The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said Friday that while the Taliban's reported commitment to lower violence in Afghanistan is a "positive step," he is dissatisfied with the lack of information about the agreement that has been shared with Congressional leaders.

February 14, 2020
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo takes questions from reporters during a flight from Andrews Air Force Base, Md., to Germany, Thursday, February 13, 2020. Pompeo on Thursday said he is “outraged” by the U.N.'s publication of a list of companies accused of violating Palestinian human rights by operating in Israel's West Bank settlements. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Pool via AP)

Mike Pompeo slams U.N. report revealing businesses linked to Israeli settlements

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slammed the United Nations high commissioner for human rights Thursday after a report released a list of more than 100 companies that are allegedly complicit in violating the human rights of Palestinians through conducting business with Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

February 13, 2020