Overnight Defense: North Koreans scrapped secret meeting with Pence | Budget chair presses Mattis on Pentagon audit | Shulkin rooting out 'subversion' at VA — Presented by Huntington Ingalls Industries

View in your browser     THE TOPLINE: White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders will join a delegation led by Ivanka Trump for the close of the Winter Olympics with weekend, but no meeting with North Korea will happen, the White House said Wednesday. The announcement comes a day after Vice President Pence's office confirmed that a planned secret meeting with North Korea when he was in the South was scrapped at the last minute. Huckabee Sanders is scheduled to leave for South Korea on Thursday and will return to Washington next week. A White House official told reporters on a background call that the delegation will be there to cheer on Team USA and female athletes and that no meeting with North Korea is planned. Read more from The Hill's John Bowden here.   WHAT HAPPENED WITH PENCE: During Pence's travels in Asia leading up to the Olympics, he was notably coy about whether he would meet with the North Korea delegation while at the games. Ultimately, his trip came and went without a meeting. But on Tuesday night, his office revealed that a meeting was in fact planned. In a Pence aide's telling, first reported by The Washington Post, the North cancelled the secret face-to-face between Pence, Kim Jong Un's sister and Kim Yong Nam, North Korea's nominal head of state, because of Pence's tough-on-Pyongyang rhetoric during his trip. "North Korea dangled a meeting in hopes of the vice president softening his message, which would have ceded the world stage for their propaganda during the Olympics," Nick Ayers, the vice president's chief of staff, said in a statement. Read more about the canceled meeting here.     BUDGET CHAIRMAN WANTS ANSWERS ON PENTAGON AUDIT: The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee is pushing the Pentagon for more details on the costs and timeline of its first department-wide audit. "To provide for our common defense in the new era of strategic competition heralded in the 2018 National Defense Strategy, we must fundamentally reform the Department of Defense," Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis released publicly Wednesday. "As we do so, taxpayers must have trust and confidence that their hard-earned dollars are being spent wisely." In December, the Pentagon launched the first full-scale audit in its history, a congressionally mandated undertaking that officials have hailed as a sign of their commitment to spending their multibillion-dollar budget wisely. Asked about upfront costs at a congressional hearing last month, Pentagon comptroller David Norquist said the audit would cost $367 million in fiscal 2018 and an additional $551 million to fix identified problems. Read more here.   SHULKIN SAYS HE IS ROOTING OUT 'SUBVERSION' AT VA: Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary David Shulkin has the White House's approval to root out agency staffers who oppose his policies and defy his leadership, he told Politico Tuesday night. Shulkin's new chief of staff, Peter O'Rourke, is reportedly meeting with each VA staffer who is believed to have gone against Shulkin or pushed for his ouster. "Those who crossed the line in the past are going to have to be accountable for those decisions," Shulkin told Politico.  He did not specify how many people were involved in what he called "subversive events," but multiple appointees have reportedly defied his orders and pushed for his ouster as head of the VA. Read more here.   US STRIKE IN SOMALIA KILLS 3: A U.S. airstrike in Somalia has killed three members of the al-Shabaab terrorist group, U.S. Africa Command (Africom) said Wednesday. The strike, done in coordination with the Somali government, took place Monday near the town of Jilib, about 230 miles southwest of the capital of Mogadishu, Africom said in a news release. "U.S. forces will continue to use all authorized and appropriate measures to protect U.S. citizens and to disable terrorist threats," Africom said. "This includes partnering with [African Union Mission to Somalia] and Somali National Security Forces (SNSF) in combined counterterrorism operations and targeting terrorists, their training camps, and their safe havens throughout Somalia and the region." The U.S. military assessed that no civilians were killed in the strike, Africom added. Read more here.         SPONSORED CONTENT     A message from Huntington Ingalls Industries:   Ingalls Shipbuilding is ready to start serial production on the future of amphibious warships: LPD 30. Serial production today = savings & strength for America. Learn more at Huntington Ingalls Industries. .       ON TAP FOR TOMORROW: American and Japanese scholars will discuss "The U.S.-Japan alliance and the problem of deterrence" at 9 a.m. at the Brookings Institution. http://brook.gs/2BrCdna The Heritage Foundation will host a discussion on strengthening the U.S.-NATO-Georgia alliance featuring Georgia's ambassador to the United States at noon. http://bit.ly/2Eu2TGm Pentagon chief spokeswoman Dana White will brief the media at noon. Watch live at defense.gov/live The Atlantic Council will host a discussion on "A Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy" featuring Kentaro Sonoura, special adviser to the Japanese prime minister on national security, at 3 p.m. http://bit.ly/2Cqv8Qi   ICYMI:  -- The Hill: Menendez wants assurance State Dept. didn't play role in Trump Jr.'s India visit -- Military Times: VA secretary's job appears safe, for now -- Associated Press: Hospitals overwhelmed by bombing blitz of Damascus suburbs -- Defense One: It could get harder to track US war spending Follow us on Twitter: @thehill, @Rebecca_H_K, @EllenMitchell23         Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up for Defense Newsletters     Forward Defense Newsletters       Privacy Policy  |  Manage Subscriptions  |  Unsubscribe  |  Email to a friend  |  Sign Up for Other Newsletters   The Hill 1625 K Street, NW 9th Floor, Washington DC 20006 ©2016 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.