Tag: Trump demand for personal loyalty over loyalty to country

GOP breaks with Trump firing of cyber chief: Adds to ‘confusion and chaos’

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Several Senate Republicans are pushing back on President Trump‘s decision to fire Chris Krebs, a top cybersecurity official, in a rare break with the administration.

The reactions from GOP senators, who generally are careful to stick closely to Trump, range from those offering support for Krebs to those openly breaking with Trump’s decision to fire him.

“It’s the president’s prerogative but I think it just adds to the confusion and chaos, and I’m sure I’m not the only one that would like some return to a little bit more of a — I don’t even know what’s normal anymore. We’ll call it the next normal,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and an adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Continue reading.

Trump’s post-election purge has begun

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Late Friday afternoon, the White House fired Bonnie Glick, the Senate-confirmed deputy administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, without any justification offered, making her the first senior Trump political appointee to be purged following the election. The move further cripples the $31 billion agency in the middle of a global pandemic and potentially during a presidential transition as well.

The departure of Glick is the first in what is widely expected to be a broader purge of officials whom President Trump feels to have been insufficiently loyal.

Glick, a long-time Republican foreign policy official, was told early Friday in a letter from the White House that she had until the end of the day to either resign or be fired. When she refused to resign, the White House sent a second letter informing her she was terminated effective immediately. Late Friday, USAID released a statement announcing that Friday would be Glick’s last day but providing no explanation for her firing. USAID confirmed that acting administrator John Barsa has been named acting deputy administrator and will continue to lead the agency. Continue reading.

Trump won’t allow Fauci to testify before House because it’s ‘a bunch of Trump haters’

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Tuesday said Anthony Fauci will be allowed to testify before the Senate next week, but that he would prevent the government’s top infectious diseases expert from appearing before the House because he believes it’s full of “Trump haters.”

“The House is a set up. The House is a bunch of Trump haters,” the president told reporters as he departed the White House to visit a Honeywell factory in Arizona.

“But Dr. Fauci will be testifying in front of the Senate, and he looks forward to doing that,” Trump added. “But the House I will tell you, the House, they should be ashamed of themselves. And, frankly, the Democrats should be ashamed, because they don’t want us to succeed. They want us to fail so they can win an election.” Continue reading.

Trump administration’s ‘serial IG purges’ fuel calls for anti-corruption provisions in next COVID-19 package

AlterNet logoSen. Richard Blumenthal pointed on Sunday to President Donald Trump’s intention to oust another inspector general—this time of a Department of Health and Human Services watchdog—to bolster his call for the next coronavirus legislative relief package to include measures to “forestall fraud and favoritism.”

Blumenthal (D-Conn.), along with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Reps. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), unveiled the details of their proposal to congressional leadership on Friday, urging them to “include strong oversight, accountability, and anti-corruption provisions in any upcoming legislation to provide economic aid, relief, recovery, or stimulus in response to COVID-19 in order to safeguard taxpayer funds and to bolster Americans’ faith in government to respond to this crisis.”

Blumenthal also gave a rundown of the provisions Saturday on Twitter: Continue reading.

Even Navy Secretary’s Subservience Couldn’t Save Him

The trick to surviving in Donald Trump’s administration is being a shameless toady, willing at any moment to lavish praise on the president. But acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly found that staying on Trump’s good side can be impossibly tricky. He resigned Tuesday in the apparent realization that his strenuous self-abasement was not enough to appease the president.

Last week, Modly relieved the commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, who had emailed higher-ups pleading for the evacuation of sailors aboard the aircraft carrier because of an outbreak of COVID-19. After the letter was leaked to the press, Modly sacked Capt. Brett Crozier for showing “extremely poor judgment” and letting the situation “overwhelm his ability to act professionally.”

Then the secretary flew to Guam to deliver a denunciation of Crozier, whose own sailors had cheered him as he left the ship. Modly boarded the carrier and used its public address system to inform the crew that the captain was “was either too naive or too stupid to be a commanding officer of a ship like this.” Continue reading.

White House abruptly transfers DHS official amid loyalty purge

Heather Swift, the deputy assistant secretary of public affairs at DHS, was moved to a senior post at the National Endowment for the Arts.

The White House removed a top public affairs official at the Department of Homeland Security in a move that shocked many in the department as it takes a lead role in handling the coronavirus pandemic, according to two former senior DHS officials familiar with the matter.

Heather Swift, who was DHS’ deputy assistant secretary of public affairs, was abruptly pushed out of her position on Friday after the Presidential Personnel Office raised questions about her loyalty to President Donald Trump, said one of the former DHS officials.

The personnel office may have discovered some old social media posts that officials there did not like, this person said, though POLITICO was unable to find any examples of posts the Trump administration might find objectionable. Continue reading.

Acting counterterrorism center head fired, according to former U.S. officials

Washington Post logoThe acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center was removed Wednesday in what insiders fear is a purge by the Trump administration of career professionals at an organization set up after 9/11 to protect the nation from further attacks, according to two former U.S. officials.

Russell E. Travers, a highly regarded intelligence professional with more than 40 years of government service, told colleagues he was fired by acting director of national intelligence Richard Grenell, said the former officials, who like others interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

Travers, who took up the acting position last August, had been resistant to pressure to make personnel cuts at the center, which has been undergoing a review of its mission and effectiveness. Continue reading.

Trump picks loyalist who helped Nunes hype bogus Obama wiretap claim for top NSC intel position

AlterNet logoIn contrast to all the U.S. presidents who were very reliant on their advisers, President Donald Trump has shown a strong preference for unquestioning loyalists — and he has been surrounding himself with them in recent months, from Attorney General William Barr to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. A recent loyalist addition to Team Trump, according to Politico reporters Natasha Bertrand and Daniel Lippman, is Michael Ellis, now senior director of intelligence on the National Security Council (NSC).

Ellis is known for his work as a deputy to White House attorney John Eisenberg and as a counsel to the House Intelligence Committee when it was still being chaired by Rep. Devin Nunes (a far-right California Republican and strident Trump ally). He and Ezra Cohen-Watnick, who now serves as national security adviser to United States Attorney General, were the two White House officials who gave Nunes intelligence reports purporting to show that former officials in President Barack Obama’s administration improperly “unmasked” members of the Trump transition team. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), later said the unsmasking narrative was “all created by Devin Nunes.”

Ellis’ name, Bertrand and Lippman note, has also been heard in connection with the Ukraine scandal: according to Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman — who Trump fired from the NSC after being acquitted by the U.S. Senate on two articles of impeachment — it was Ellis and Eisenberg who decided to move the record of Trump’s now-infamous July 25 phone conservation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into a top-secret NSC server. House Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, argued that Trump committed an impeachable offense when, that day, he tried to pressure Zelensky into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Continue reading.

Ginni Thomas leading purge of ‘disloyal’ Trump aides: report

AlterNet logoA group led by Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is driving a White House effort to purge government officials seen as “disloyal” to President Donald Trump and replace them with vocal supporters who regularly appear on Fox News, according to Axios.

Trump recently rehired Johnny McEntee, a 29-year-old personal aide to Trump who was abruptly fired in 2018 amid an investigation over “serious financial crimes,” to lead the presidential personnel office and purge officials believed to be “anti-Trump,” Axios reported last week.

This effort has apparently been in the works since at least 2018, when Thomas’ group Groundswell submitted a number of memos urging the firing of so-called “Never Trump” and “Deep State” officials as aides complained that the government was filled with “snakes,” according to the report. Continue reading.