WTF Community

Who The Fuck Has Left The Trump Administration

General Discussion
#359

I agree…not certain that Rosenstein was sarcastic. A lot of the commentary today (MSNBC - Morning Joe, etc) has been stating that within the 8 day period between Comey’s firing and Rosenstein’s final decision to get Mueller in there, the reporters are remarking that Rosenstein was upended by this firing. Rosenstein was put into the hot public spotlight, feared for the worse that indeed T had corrupt intentions and thought to maybe wiretap him, calling for the 25th amendment.

Reporters (Matt Miller, former DOJ spokesperson, MSNBC contributor and by not saying too much until The Daily - author Michael Schmidt) were stating that it would have been known to Rosenstein that the 25th Amendment would have been a steep hill to climb, with the need to get all the cabinet on board, as well as the President’s consent. As far as wiretapping, that set off alarm bells because the only time one would do that is if you had suspicions you were dealing with a criminal. And could Rosenstein walk that one back…? Not sure he can…

Rosenstein is going to be leaving sometime in the near future. The pundits are all expecting that Mueller would be in “clear the embassy” mode, ie - need to leave asap, forward all important materials to outside DA’s and get your affairs in order.

It is going to be a helluva week…may we all have a lot of shock absorbers. :oncoming_automobile::fire:

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#360

Domestic Policy Council Director Andrew Bremberg is leaving the White House at the end of the year, three sources familiar with his plans told POLITICO.

Bremberg, who has been with the administration since President Donald Trump’s election, will be nominated as the next ambassador to the United Nations Mission in Geneva, an administration official and two people close to the White House said.

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The move ends a nearly two-year tenure for Bremberg atop the president’s Domestic Policy Council, where he played a central role in the White House’s broad deregulation effort and was involved in coordinating the GOP’s major policy initiatives — including its failed attempts to repeal Obamacare.

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#361

EPA will eliminate Office of the Science Advisor

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency plans to dissolve its Office of the Science Advisor, a senior post that was created to counsel the E.P.A. administrator on the scientific research underpinning health and environmental regulations, according to a person familiar with the agency’s plans. The person spoke anonymously because the decision had not yet been made public.

The science adviser works across the agency to ensure that the highest quality science is integrated into the agency’s policies and decisions, according to the E.P.A.’s website. The move is the latest among several steps taken by the Trump administration that appear to have diminished the role of scientific research in policymaking while the administration pursues an agenda of rolling back regulations.

Asked about the E.P.A.’s plans, John Konkus, a spokesman for the agency, emailed a prepared statement from the science adviser, Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, in which she described the decision to dissolve the office as one that would “combine offices with similar functions” and “eliminate redundancies.”

After dissolving the office of the scientific adviser, Mr. Wheeler plans to merge the position into an office that reports to the E.P.A.’s Deputy Assistant Administrator for Science, a demotion that would put at least two more managerial layers between the E.P.A.’s chief scientist and its top decision maker.

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#362

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday lost another senior level official in his administration with the resignation of Jeff Pon, director of the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the federal government workforce.

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The move appeared to have been sudden. As recently as Thursday, Pon had issued a statement about modernizing the federal workforce. On Friday, the OPM had not yet removed his biography and statements from its website.

Trump named Margaret Weichert, the Office of Management and Budget’s deputy director for management, to be the acting OPM director, the White House said. Weichert will continue in her OMB role at the same time, the White House said.

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#363

Soft landing…Hope Hicks will move to Fox News.

#364

Let’s not forget she was part of the conspiracy to cover up the true purpose of the Trump Tower meeting – she’s undoubtedly in line for an indictment if she hasn’t already made a deal.

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#365

Trump has accepted Nikki Haley’s resignation

President Trump has accepted Nikki Haley’s resignation as UN Ambassador, the two said Tuesday morning in a public Oval Office meeting. She will exit at the end of the year, Trump said.

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#366

A possible reason for her sudden, unexplained departure: :small_airplane: :eyes:

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#367

Yes, this could be. Everyone seems really stumped, right? :eyes:

Former Gov. Sanford said that it could be the plane use, and she wanted to resign before the stuff hit the fan for all her private plane use.

Or that if Sen Graham leaves to become the Atty General (when T gets rid of Sessions after the midterms) then she could take his seat.

Or that she wants to leave before all the loss of seats in the mid-terms…and keeps her record clean and on a ‘winning’ front.

Or she’s always been ideologically opposed to T’s policies and she wants to go her own way…She is not really in sync with Sec Pompeo.

Or T chose Dina Powell and wants her to take the Ambassador role.

All reporters are going awaiting leaks from the WH.

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#368

@Keaton_James
Interesting theory from John Hudson of WaPo
Click for full thread :point_down:
https://twitter.com/john_hudson/status/1049668803523747840?s=21

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#369

New Acting Inspector General of the Interior Department Cabinet member Suzanne Israel Tufts (leaves Housing) to oversee and act as an agency watchdog under Ryan Zinke who has two investigations against him. Unclear if he is will be gone…but could be looking that way.

Some speculation that she could help save Zinke from these investigations…

The White House appears to be replacing the agency watchdog at the Interior Department who is in the midst of two investigations into Secretary Ryan Zinke, drawing criticism from government oversight groups.

In an internal email sent last Friday, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson announced to his staff that after just seven months at the agency, the assistant secretary for administration, Suzanne Israel Tufts, was moving over to the Interior Department to be the acting inspector general. Acting inspectors general do not need Senate confirmation.

But the internal announcement came as news to the Interior Department IG’s office, which said in a statement to NBC News, “The Office of Inspector General has received no official communication about any leadership changes.”
…
“We are particularly worried that she’s a political appointee without any obvious government oversight experience,” Brian said, referring to Tufts. “And they are sliding her in under the radar of any Senate confirmation process to take over charged investigations into the behavior of the cabinet secretary.”

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#370

Deputy Interior Inspector General Mary Kendall is let go…fired. Replaced by Tufts.

Suzanne Israel Tufts, was moving over to the Interior Department to be the acting inspector general.

Tufts, a long-time Republican attorney who has worked for multiple New York law firms, would be replacing Deputy Interior Inspector General Mary Kendall.

Kendall has been running the agency’s watchdog investigations and audits team of 265 employees for 10 years.

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#371

And as expected Don McGahn is out. His replacement, Patrick Cipollone starts next. McGahn sat behind his boy, Kavanaugh throughout his testimony.

McGahn has been planning to leave the White House, but a source told CNN his departure was expedited after President Donald Trump said Tuesday he had selected Patrick Cipollone as his successor. Cipollone is a seasoned litigator and former Justice Department official who served during President George H.W. Bush’s administration.

A source said McGahn had a 20-minute farewell meeting with Trump Wednesday. The source called it a positive departure but both Trump and McGahn recognized it was time for him to go. The source said McGahn didn’t want to stay on and the President didn’t want him to stay.

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#372

WAIT…This auspicious move has been STOPPED by pressure from some Dems, and Mary Kendall will keep her job as Inspector General to Interior Secretary’s Zinke’s misdoings.

Well, that is good news.

The Interior Department’s longtime acting inspector general, whose aggressive investigations have been a thorn in the side of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, will keep her job.

Mary Kendall, the Interior Department’s deputy inspector general, has overseen a record number of investigations of Zinke, including one that concluded the secretary could have avoided spending $12,375 on a charter flight to a hockey team owned by a former campaign contributor.

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Ben Carson, Secretary for Housing and Urban Development, told staff in an Oct. 12 email that Suzanne Israel Tufts, a political appointee who serves as assistant secretary of HUD’s Office of Administration, would be leaving the agency to become the acting inspector general at the Interior Department.

The move drew condemnation from Democrats, who termed it retribution against Kendall, who’s served in that capacity for several years.

But Heather Swift, a senior adviser to Zinke, said in a statement Thursday that Kendall remains in her post and there’d never been a decision to move Tufts into the job.

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📝 Must Read Op-Ed and Profiles
#373

Maddow’s take on this is spot on . She ties it in to the bigger picture of the Trump administration’s flagrant, relentless corruption. This is Maddow at her finest: engaging, informative, inspiring. If you missed this segment, it’s really worth watching!

P.S. Glad to see that MSNBC is making more RMS clips available for viewing. I watch the show without fail on YouTube TV,* but sometimes I get frustrated when I want to share part of a show with a friend because MSNBC won’t provide the clip online – that seems to be changing bit by bit.

*YouTube TV is different from plain vanilla YouTube. It’s a service like Hulu and is actually pretty good – especially for news and commentary junkies. If you “record” an MSNBC show on their “virtual DVR in the cloud,” you can watch it later and skip through the ads – but, be warned, that’s not true for many of the other networks (NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, etc.) – on those channels, you sometimes are forced to sit through the ads, even when you’ve “recorded” the program. Basically, I just subscribe to YouTube TV to watch MSNBC so it works for me.

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#374

And now Suzanne Israel Tufts has resigned from the federal government. Good. She was originally brought on board by Ben Carson to approve a $31,000 dining table for his office (and as a reward for working on the Trump campaign). She did such a good job enabling corruption at HUD that the powers that be decided she’d be the perfect person to quash the four ongoing investigations into Ryan Zinke’s corruption. She was just in the process of being put in “charge” of those investigations when, thanks to Democrats sounding the alarm, the whole thing backfired (see the Maddow show segment above). Now Tufts is exiting the government completely – probably to avoid more public scrutiny.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/10/19/trump-appointee-tapped-days-ago-to-run-interior-departments-watchdog-office-resigns-amid-controversy-over-handling-of-her-hiring/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.af3dc7d10716

A top Trump administration political appointee who just two days ago was on track to lead the Interior Department’s inspector general’s office resigned Friday from the federal government, according to an administration official.

Suzanne Israel Tufts was scheduled to be interviewed Friday morning for another inspector general position elsewhere in the government, according to a person with knowledge of the interview. But she did not show up for the appointment.

Her departure ends a madcap week, as the administration quickly scuttled an arrangement to make Tufts acting Interior watchdog amid media reports and scrutiny from Capitol Hill lawmakers. Tufts did not respond to messages left on her cellphone.

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#375

Yes, she did. I am usually tuned in right as it is scheduled, and also DVR it, but good to know that YouTubeTV is the source for getting more clips. I have looked on MSNBC’s Maddow’s Blog etc for video snippets, but you are right, they do not arrive until a day later.

I was looking for other sources where it may crop up…
and found another news aggregator with a SEARCH feature (aside from @Matt super CURRENT STATUS (v1.0) and came across a couple of them, which if you type in search MADDOW, there are a bunch of videos available including the one you listed. I am not sure when it is posted, but it does link to the MSNBC website. The two listed are not at all solely news about current political events, but offer a broad spectrum of stories. I was just interested in seeing that her specific video came up! :man_dancing:

So much content, and where to go…

Thanks for the tip on YouTubeTV.

:smile:

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#376

More departures expected…

The list includes Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who announced last month that she will depart by the end of the year, with no replacement in line. Trump is widely expected to oust Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom he has criticized for months. Others who appear most likely to depart, according to administration sources and White House advisers, include Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, a close ally of chief of staff John Kelly.

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#377

’Moving day’: White House staffers set to split for 2020 campaign
Trump’s reelection campaign is set to take shape months earlier than Barack Obama’s or George W. Bush’s did.

The first moves could come shortly after next week’s election, when senior Trump aides Bill Stepien, the director of political affairs, and Justin Clark, who oversees the Office of Public Liaison, are expected to take senior roles with the reelection effort, according to two people with knowledge of the plans. Both are heavily involved in the run-up to the midterms and held top positions on Trump’s 2016 campaign.

The list is almost certain to grow. Jessica Ditto, who has served as deputy communications director in the White House and on the Trump campaign, is widely expected to join the 2020 team in a communications role. Cabinet aides with political backgrounds — such as Jason Simmons, a Small Business Administration staffer who ran Trump’s North Carolina effort — are regarded as potential hires.

And on Thursday evening, the Trump campaign alumni group 45 Club is scheduled to meet at Morton’s steakhouse in downtown Washington to discuss how “members can get involved and engaged in 2020 after the midterms,” according to a copy of the invitation.

The coming wave has become known internally as “moving day,” a reference to the third day of a professional golf tournament, when players try to move toward the top of the field. The looming personnel moves provide a window into a White House that has begun looking beyond the midterms to Trump’s battle for four more years.

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#378

Here we go… Sessions has been forced out!!

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has resigned at the request of President Trump. The move follows months of Mr. Trump expressing his displeasure with Mr. Sessions in critical tweets.

The abrupt move ended Mr. Sessions’ tumultuous tenure as the nation’s top law-enforcement officer. Throughout, he couldn’t shake Mr. Trump’s displeasure over the special-counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

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