James Hohman writes in the Washington Post about Trump’s nefarious and defiant actions during his lame-duck days in office:
He writes:
Perhaps as consequential as President Trump firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper via tweet on Monday, which has been widely expected for months, was the hiring of Michael Ellis to be the National Security Agency’s general counsel.
As one of the most controversial staffers in the White House over the past four years, Ellis has shown himself to be as much a staunch Trump loyalist as anyone else in the administration. But his new job means that he will no longer be a political appointee. Instead, as a civilian member of the senior executive service, he gets protections that will make it quite difficult for President-elect Joe Biden to fire him.
Burrowing down into what Trump derides as “the deep state” will give Ellis, a former Republican campaign operative, a powerful platform from which he could seek to complicate or undermine the incoming Democratic administration’s agenda. This is a preview of the sort of behavior from Trump that many on Biden’s transition team expect, and fear, during the lame-duck president’s final 71 days in power, even as he refuses to concede defeat.
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Ellis worked for Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) before joining the National Security Council when Trump took office. In March 2017, Ellis was reportedly one of the people involved in giving Nunes access to classified files related to the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. Nunes reviewed the records at the White House in the middle of the night. The notorious episode came to be known as “the midnight run.”
In July 2019, Ellis was allegedly the first person who proposed moving the transcript of Trump’s call with Ukraine’s president to a special server where fewer people would be able to see that the president had pushed his counterpart in Kyiv to announce an investigation into Biden and his son Hunter when the topic of Javelin antitank missiles came up.
Then-Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman testified under oath before Congress that Ellis was behind moving the transcript. But Ellis defied a subpoena to answer questions about his role in the donnybrook and what knowledge he might have had of the freeze on vital military assistance that Congress had approved for Ukraine. Ellis is named in the second article of impeachment that passed the House as a party to Trump’s obstruction of Congress.
After the GOP-controlled Senate voted not to convict the president, Trump ordered the removal of Vindman from the White House and promoted Ellis to be senior director for intelligence on the NSC.
Being general counsel for the NSA is one of the most immensely complicated and critical legal jobs in all of government, but it is somewhat insulated from politics. Ellis will report to the deputy general counsel for intelligence at the Defense Department, a civilian job. That person reports to the DOD general counsel, who is a political appointee. Once Biden’s eventual nominee for that job is confirmed by the Senate, he or she could choose to reassign Ellis to a different civil service position inside the military’s legal architecture.
“The appointment was made under pressure from the White House,” Ellen Nakashima reports. “NSA Director Paul Nakasone was not in favor of Ellis’s selection, according to three people familiar with the matter. However, the selection was not up to him, they said. … Ellis was selected over two other finalists: acting NSA general counsel Teisha Anthony and Bradley Brooker, acting general counsel at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Both are career civil servants.” The Pentagon and White House did not respond to a request for a comment.
Ironically, this is happening as Trump moves aggressively to roll back civil service protections for members of the bureaucracy. But it’s not surprising. Trump trying to burrow people inside the government shows just how much this president sees personnel as policy.
In related news, the top political appointee at the U.S. Agency for International Development told staff during a Monday phone call that three Trump loyalists are being elevated to top positions inside the agency in the waning days of the administration. John Barsa, who holds the title of acting deputy administrator, was formerly USAID’s acting administrator. He was supposed to step down from his position at the helm of the agency last week under the Vacancies Act but got to remain in charge after the White House fired Bonnie Glick, who had been serving as the deputy administrator.
“Glick was not given any reason for her firing but had supported the steps already taken in the transition process required by law,” Yeganeh Torbati and John Hudson report. “USAID officials also learned Monday that Max Primorac, who held previous roles focusing on religious rights in the agency, would be Barsa’s deputy … His title will be ‘senior official performing the duties of the deputy administrator.’ Primorac’s behavior while at USAID over the past two years has raised eyebrows among his colleagues. In 2019, Primorac expressed confidence during a government forum that Trump would win reelection. … And in 2018, just before he joined USAID, Primorac promoted a client’s business interests to a U.N. agency funded by USAID, ProPublica reported. … USAID, which provides billions of dollars of humanitarian assistance to foreign countries ever year, declined to comment.
Trump has also removed the official in charge of the federal program that produces the U.S. government’s definitive reports on climate change. “Michael Kuperberg, a climate scientist who had been executive director of the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) since July 2015, was told Friday evening to return to his previous position as a scientist at the Energy Department. He had been expected to stay on through the production of the fifth edition of the congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment,” Jason Samenow, Andrew Freedman and Juliet Eilperin report. “The USGCRP is a program Congress created to help coordinate the climate science programs of 13 federal agencies. … Kuperberg directed that office through the release of the fourth edition of the climate assessment, which detailed the potentially dire consequences for Americans should the country take little action to cut emissions.” That report angered the White House because Trump has consistently downplayed the seriousness of the climate threat.
“Removing Kuperberg could allow the White House to insert someone whose climate science views more closely align with Trump’s,” per Samenow, Freedman and Eilperin. “That may be exactly what’s about to happen, according to Myron Ebell, a climate change contrarian at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who is close to the administration. Ebell said in an interview that the job will most likely go to David Legates, a meteorologist from the University of Delaware who was recently appointed to be the deputy assistant secretary of Commerce for environmental observation and prediction at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
“While that is a senior position at NOAA reporting directly to the acting administrator, Legates does not have a role in the climate assessment process while serving in that capacity. … Even if he were to hold the climate research job for just the remaining few months of Trump’s term, Ebell said he could help select the authors of the next assessment and influence its final content that way. Once the assessment’s authors are selected, it can be difficult to change them as the process moves along, Ebell said, regardless of the administration in office at the time.”
Irrelevant to this thread, but I just happened upon this. Somebody created a VR chat world based on Four Seasons Landscaping. Pretty brilliant.
So, here’s a question: What publisher will be unethical enough to publish the next book “written” by our infamously semi-literate ex-president and vandal in chief? Any suggestions for titles? I’ll kick it off:
Here Lies Donald Trump
And at this, at lying, he really is the Best!
These sorts of people are such natural born criminals that you don’t have to track them for very long before they commit offenses beyond the pale of reasonable job protections. It’s just a matter of the will to fire them. There’s the rub.
If Biden cannot fire Trump’s loyalists once Trump is gone, then why not do what Trump does and demote them to another job title in a remote office with nothing but a desk and chair where they sit and are not allowed to do anything but breathe?
That’s what I have read Trump does when he cannot fire someone that will not swear total loyalty to him. He has them harassed, demoted, and transferred to another location where they get paid to do nothing.
Deputy Chicago Public Schools Superintendent Manford Byrd, Jr. experienced that twice. First under Superintendent Ruth Love (of Oakland) (1981), who was appointed by Mayor Jane Byrne. Second, when Mayor Daley 2 (1989) wanted Superintendent Byrd gone. Chicago Mayors always want to control school superintendents. ☹️
With no windows, a 20 watt incandescent bulb hanging from the ceiling and the bathroom vents exhausting into the room.
Best of wishes to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in their quest to restore decency and integrity to the White House and bring together a divided nation. It’s a tall order, but the simple return of decorum to our politics will be a great boon. We’ve become accustomed, over the past four years, to daily outrages and tantrums. We’ve found out what it’s like to have as our president the loudmouthed, uncouth, semi-literate old troglodyte who embarrasses everyone at the family reunion by pontificating about making English the official language and nuking countries and locking ’em all up and shipping them all back to their “sh–hole countries.” It’s been exhausting, and we’ve paid a terrible toll. The whole world has an epic case of Trump Fatigue that extends to the Con and his Spawn (the whole criminal enterprise) and to all his toadies and enablers and wrecking crew. Time to rebuild. Democracy squeaks by, again. It’s not something certain. It has to be rebuilt again and again, and Joe and Kamala are just the ones to do this.
But at the inauguration, I would like to see one little break from traditional decorum and protocol. I want to see Joe in aviator shades and a classic T-bird cruising down Pennsylvania Avenue with First Teacher Dr. Jill!
Trumpism is an attempt to institutionalize the “evil empire.”
And think of this: Joe won’t have the difficulty Trump had finding bands willing to play at his events. LOL.
His virtual event.
One option for Trump is to become the “opposition”, the shadow government continuing to pump up his 70m voters, use them to “control” Congressional Republicans and continue the fight …. undermine the Bide administration and plan for 2024 …. most Republicans are perfectly willing to stay on Trumps coattails …. will the Republican Party allow him to dominate the party? Will the American people?
That is doubtless the Trump plan. But it runs into this snag: he’s going to prison unless he flees to a country that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the US. Perhaps that was what was behind Trump’s saying at a recent rally that if he lost to Biden, he might leave the country. Trump has no editor. Whatever washes out of the sewer of his mind is simply out there, fouling the air.
Mike Lofgrin popularized the term “Deep State” . Those career people who have served a lifetime in various agencies. Those working at the FBI ,CIA, Justice Department ,State Department … They serve through Democratic and Republican Administrations and see their loyalty to the Nation and the institutions they serve in. . Many of whom could earn far more in the private sector.
That does not mean that they are always right nor does it mean that they harbor nefarious motives. After 4 years of Trump attacking these career public servants .
” Hell hath no furry like a Public Servant scorned ”
Donnie and company better start fueling the plane .
I’ve seen a number of news articles lately about the danger that Trump presents to national security, once he’s out of office, because of the secrets he knows (and the millions and millions that he owes). Well, look, that cow is already out of the barn. I figure that the damage that could be done by Trump, in that respect, has been done.
Jason Matthews, the retired 33-year veteran of the CIA’s Operations Directorate and author of the beautifully-written and gripping novel Red Sparrow (made into a mediocre movie starring the not-mediocre Jennifer Lawrence), created for that novel a character who is a compromised US Senator. One of the things that this portrait in the novel reveals is that our career people in intelligence and defense know when to hold back sensitive information from compromised, amoral, deeply dishonest blubbering idiots. I suspect that the folks working for us in these capacities, in the interests of the nation, have long had the good sense to keep the really sensitive stuff from the likes of Trump.
One way to withhold information from Trump, of course, would have been to put it into a report that he wouldn’t read because he barely can.
Career intelligence officers, despite some of the conspiracy theories that are tossed around here, are truly devoted to the nation, first, foremost and always. My recently deceased father in law was in the highest echelons of military intelligence for more than two decades. His family only knew about his rank and where he was stationed, but when he was gone on assignment they had no idea where he was or what his was doing. In putting together his obituary for the family, I spoke to some of his former colleagues who gave an inkling into some of his work, only what was declassified. No one in his family ever knew–not once did he discuss his work–that he was in the middle of some of the most important historical events of our life time. As one of his friends said to me, he “took American secrets very seriously.” The one thread that was consistent in his life was working with governments around the world to create mutual security. To his colleagues, he was a rock of honesty, consistency, and experience. To his family, we was a dad, a brother, and a husband. He was the opposite in every way of the Idiot.
We are at an incredibly dangerous time for our democracy. Trump is not going to give up power, and what makes it worse is that the entirely corrupt and awful William Barr and others of his ilk – including almost all of the Republican party – take their marching orders from Herr Trump, their fuhrer.
Mark Esper is as right wing as it comes, but apparently he draws the line when it comes to helping the authoritarians completely destroy American democracy. William Barr has no such line.
The news media needs to start treating these people like the traitors they are, and in every interview indentifying them as “traitor to democracy William Barr”.
Gee are we in trouble when I agree .
Where’s all the massive vote fraud videos? If there’s vote fraud, someone should have recorded it by now. I’m not saying there is vote fraud, unlike Trump. 😐
About John Barsa, written 6-18-2020-
“Trump in trouble with Dems for opposing abortion abroad…John Barsa urges clear action to address the real needs of vulnerable people around the world without promoting abortion”.
Theocracy
A player- the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom
About Max Primorac (10-17-2018)- “USAID announced a new collaboration with the Knights of Columbus”.
The man in the White House signed an executive order changing the civil service rules. On a couple of Civil Service position grades, he made it possible to fire a person without cause. I wonder if these new people he is placing in civil service rather than political appointees fall under that umbrella …which Biden could use to fire them before he recents the EO.
My comment does not fit this thread; however, I did not know where to put it, as our previous conversation on rural voters was several days ago.
I believe that the rural/urban voting divide should be carefully analyzed. There used to be Democrats in rural areas. My state of Montana had four out of five Democrats in the top state positions not too long ago.
Come January, all five of our top five state officials will be Republican. Some of this is because of wealthy people coming in to parts of Montana and voting to keep their money and tax benefits.
But Democrats have lost the rural voters they once had. I talked with a cowboy friend recently who is Democrat. He said that many WWII veterans were very loyal to FDR and were staunch Democrats. These were ranchers and farmers.
What has happened? We need to find out.
The Democrats really need to figure out how they lost the part of rural America that they used to have. Montana, which used to be fairly evenly split between Republicans and Democrats (but leaning Republican) just suffered an entire Republican sweep of all elected positions.
Here is an organization I just discovered about outreach to rural America. Below is one paragraph about one director on its board, Heidi Heitkamp, former senator from North Dakota.
https://onecountryproject.com/board-of-directors/
“As a former senator from one of the most rural states in the country, Senator Heitkamp saw firsthand the slow erosion of rural support for Democrats, which led to a landslide victory for President Donald Trump. She joined the One Country Project to re-open the rural dialogue between voters and Democrats and help remind Democrats that rural voters have traditionally been part of the Democratic coalition.”
And here is the Farmers Union website:
https://nfu.org/about/
Heitkamp is the “Democratic” equivalent of Susan Collins. In the first two years of the Idiot’s administration, she voted, according to Congressional Quarterly, 67% of the time with the Idiot. She had a NRA rating of “A.” She supported the most extreme anti-abortion measures. She voted to confirm Neil Gorsuch. She supported the Keystone pipeline. She was most anti-climate protection “Democrat” in the Senate. The late Ed Schulz brought her to national prominence and he regretted it until his untimely death. Outreach to rural America begins with them picking up a some newspapers and getting informed about the world. Call me when that happens. This “poor, poor, pitiful us” stuff don’t fly.
H2 has landed a gig as a “political commentator” (on MSNBC, I believe). Sure she is well-paid.
Exactly:. A bit tired of being portrayed as a “Coastal Elitist” . Yes the Party has to talk to those who shower after work not before ” says Tim Ryan . So what exactly was the Pro act , M4all , raising the minimum wage , Equal pay,,,. All in the agenda of that Coastal Elite Progressive wing of the party. Some of it opposed by the moderates.
But none of it supported by a single Republican . Who would rather talk about abortion (except the abortions their flings had) ,Banning Christmas(“I’m working … my a** off on the Christmas stuff, that you know, who gives a f*** about the Christmas stuff and decorations? But I need to do it, right?”) . Walls to keep out the undocumented they hire and Welfare Queens except for the subsidies to Wall street , Corporate Farms and Big oil.
“Outreach to rural America begins with them picking up a some newspapers and getting informed about the world. Call me when that happens. This “poor, poor, pitiful us” stuff don’t fly.”
Exactly right. “It was all a Lie” It was always and still is about race.