Rob Wittman has a plan for after Election Day: become chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, the panel that writes the rules and the checks for the Pentagon.
The defense industry is already investing in that plan.
PACs tied to Lockheed Martin, RTX and Science Applications International Corp. each gave Wittman's campaign $10,000 this election cycle, the Virginia Mercury reported on Wednesday. And Wittman has voted to keep the war with Iran going — a war that, in his own words, could bring "some good things."
Who's paying
Wittman is already the committee's vice chairman. That means he already helps oversee the companies that make the planes, missiles and software the military buys.
The Mercury found that in just the third quarter of this year, PACs tied to defense-related companies gave:
- $27,500 to Wittman's campaign
- $36,000 to his leadership PAC, America's First PAC
- $4,000 to the Wittman Victory Committee, a joint fundraising account registered with the FEC that also raises for the Virginia GOP and House Republicans' campaign arm
That's more than $67,000 from defense-tied PACs in three months. When the Mercury asked his campaign for a breakdown of every entry, it didn't provide one.
Then there are his investments. Wittman's latest financial disclosure, covering 2025, lists stock held jointly with his wife in Texas Instruments, Broadcom, Accenture, ITT and Trane Technologies. Each holding is worth between $1,001 and $15,000, and all five companies do some defense business. His campaign didn't answer when the Mercury asked whether he still owns them.
His campaign says outside advisers pick his stocks, that he has never directed a trade, and that his decisions "are not made based on personal financial interests." It also says Wittman has asked his adviser to start moving out of individual stocks — news he shared a week before the election, while the issue is being used against him.
He voted to keep the war going
On September 15, the House voted on a resolution directing the president to pull U.S. forces out of hostilities with Iran unless Congress authorized the war. It passed, with all 213 Democrats who voted and seven Republicans in favor.
Rob Wittman voted no.
The Constitution gives Congress — not the president — the power to declare war. By September, the war Trump launched with Iran was in its eighth month, without congressional approval, according to the Mercury. Wittman, a senior member of the committee that's supposed to keep watch over the military, voted against asserting that power.
He also backs Trump's proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget. "We have to make sure that we are modernizing the military," he told the Mercury in September. "The strategy of peace through strength works."
And in a July radio interview, Wittman said "some good things" could come from the war, as Middle Eastern countries looked for new energy shipping routes and the U.S. pursued new energy deals. He cautioned it would take time for those changes to reach prices at the pump.
The same pattern elsewhere
Wittman isn't the only Republican who's backed the Iran war while taking defense money. Michigan's Tom Barrett voted against ending it in April, when the resolution failed by one vote, and now says America "cannot be dragged into another endless war" — after the defense industry gave his campaign more than $58,000.
None of these records proves a donor bought a vote. Virginia Commonwealth University political scientist Alex Keena told the Mercury that what matters is whether a lawmaker puts powerful interests ahead of the public — "particularly problematic if a member of Congress personally benefits from doing so."
His challenger, Democrat Shannon Taylor, has made his stocks and defense money an issue. According to the Mercury, Wittman told the Associated Press she was misrepresenting his financial disclosures and called her "a liar."
What the record shows
Rob Wittman is asking Virginia's 1st District to send him back so he can chair the committee that oversees the Pentagon. In the third quarter alone, defense-tied PACs gave more than $67,000 to his campaign, leadership PAC and joint fundraising committee; he and his wife own stock in five companies with defense business; and on September 15 he was one of 203 Republicans who voted against ending a war Congress never approved.
