(Via WFB)  The Senate Armed Services Committee will not hold a vote Thursday on the confirmation of secretary of defense nominee Chuck Hagel.

The office of Sen. Jim Inhofe (R., Okla.) confirmed to the Washington Free Beacon that the vote has been delayed and that no new date has been set.

“Hagel vote won’t be tomorrow in Armed Services,” Politico’s Manu Raju tweeted Wednesday afternoon. “Levin: “The committee’s review of the nomination is not yet complete.’” Foreign Policy’s Josh Rogin also confirmed the delay.

Hagel’s murky financial entanglements are a major concern in the delay, according to sources close to the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC). Also of concern is a committee investigation into how Hagel and his Senate office handled a 2007 sexual harassment allegation made by a former staff member.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) distributed a letter to his Republican colleagues calling on SASC Chairman Carl Levin (D., Mich.) to delay a committee vote until Hagel responds to the numerous questions about his financial entanglements, according to multiple Senate sources.

The letter has garnered at least two dozen signatures thus far, the sources said. The signatories include every GOP member of SASC.

“Your refusal to respond to this reasonable request [for more information] suggests either a lack of respect for the Senate’s responsibility to advice and consent or that you are for some reason unwilling to allow this financial disclosure to come to light,” Cruz and his colleagues state in the letter sent late Wednesday to Hagel.

“This Committee, and the American people, have a right to know if a nominee for Secretary of Defense has received compensation, directly or indirectly for foreign sources,” the letter states. “Until the Committee receives full and complete answers, it cannot in good faith determine whether you should be confirmed as Secretary of Defense.”  (continue reading)

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