This is beautiful. Thank you for posting this article!
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Trump administration official plans to resign — with a call to cancel billions in student loan debts
One of the Trump administration’s top education officials has announced his intention to quit, and endorsed the cancellation of $925 billion in existing students loans, according to the Wall Street Journal. A. Wayne Johnson was appointed chief operating officer of the Office of Federal Student Aid in 2017, and later became chief strategy and transformation officer in the department. Johnson reportedly called the student loan system “fundamentally broken,” and added: “We run through the process of putting this debt burden on somebody… but it rides on their credit files—it rides on their back—for decades … The time has come for us to end and stop the insanity.”
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Cross posting…
White House cybersecurity chief quits, says leadership is inviting an attack
White House computer security Chief Dimitrios Vistakis gave the White House one helluva resignation notice earlier this week when he quit over practices he dubbed “absurd” including the systemic purging of cybersecurity staff. They say that history…
This is really disturbing – we only seem to get bad news about cybersecurity. Our President is doing absolutely nothing about it – it’s almost like he wants us to get hacked.
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Trump’s Russia Director To Leave National Security Council Amid Impeachment Inquiry
Tim Morrison, the top Russia official on President Trump’s National Security Council, who is scheduled to testify in the impeachment inquiry on Thursday, is expected to leave his White House post imminently, three sources familiar with the plan told NPR.
Morrison, a conservative hawk who has served as the senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council, will be replaced by Andrew Peek, the deputy assistant secretary of state for Iraq and Iran in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, according to the sources.
Morrison and Peek could not immediately be reached for comment by NPR. The National Security Council declined comment.
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Edit: Gah. How did I post this here? I thought I put it under the Humor and I Don’t Care locations!
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Our President doesn’t even know who is actually in charge of the Department of Homeland Security. Is it this guy or that other guy? Thanks, Mr. President, we’re all feeling very secure in the homeland.
President Trump told reporters Friday evening that Chad Wolf is the new acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, but it was unclear whether a formal appointment had occurred, extending confusion about who would step in to fill one of the country’s most crucial national security posts.
After reporters asked Trump about rumors he was planning to place Wolf in charge of DHS, Trump said, “Well he’s right now acting and we’ll see what happens.”
But no transition has taken place yet, according to two senior administration officials. Kevin McAleenan, the current acting DHS secretary, remains on the job, they said. McAleenan is scheduled to stay in the role at least through early next week, according to one of the senior administration officials, who was baffled by Trump’s statement.
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Wolf would be the fifth person to occupy the secretary job at DHS under Trump, an unusually high degree of leadership turnover for a department whose founding goal was to project stability and safeguard the country from another 9/11-style terrorist attack.
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In February, Trump picked Wolf to be the first undersecretary of DHS’s Office of Strategy, Policy and Plans, but the Senate has yet to confirm him, and the president’s announcement also leaves his nomination in doubt.
“… DHS … a department whose founding goal was to project stability…” Ha! It’s tough to project stability when there’s been 5 department heads in less then 3 years and, on top of that, there’s confusion as to who is actually in charge at this moment. 
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NSC official who attended key Ukraine meetings to leave post
Earl Matthews, a senior National Security Council official who attended several of the meetings now at the center of the congressional impeachment inquiry, will depart from his job on Friday, according to two people familiar with his plans.
During his time on the NSC, Matthews, the senior director for defense policy and strategy and one of the highest ranking African-American members of the Trump White House, worked closely with former national security advisor John Bolton. He was part of a small group that sat in on meetings with Ukrainian officials that House Democrats are now scrutinizing as they investigate whether President Donald Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate a political rival.
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Lt Col Vindman is going to be out…
MARGARET BRENNAN: Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, who has testified under oath, is serving on the National Security Council currently. Will he continue to work for you despite testifying against the president?
O’BRIEN: Well- well look, one of the things that I’ve talked about is that we’re streamlining the National Security Council. It got bloated to like two hundred and thirty six people from- up from 100 in the Bush administration under President Obama. We’re streamlining the National Security Council. There are people that are detailed from different departments and agencies. My understanding is he’s- is that Colonel Vindman is- is detailed from the Department of Defense. So everyone who’s detailed at the NSC, people are going to start going back to their own departments and we’ll bring in new folks. But we’re going to get that number down to around 100 people. That’s what it was under Condoleezza Rice. She came and met with me. I met with a number of my successors.
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Mike Pompeo Is Searching for a Safe Exit From State Ahead of Senate Run, GOP Sources Say
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has told three prominent Republicans in recent weeks that he plans to resign from the Trump Administration to run for the U.S. Senate from Kansas in next year’s elections. The problem: how to get out in one piece.
Pompeo’s plan had been to remain at the State Department until early spring next year, the three Republicans tell TIME, but recent developments, including the House impeachment inquiry, are hurting him politically and straining his relationship with Trump.
So Pompeo is rethinking his calendar, say the top Republicans, one who served in the Trump Administration, another who remains in government, and a third who served in several high-ranking posts and is active in GOP politics. The timing of Pompeo’s resignation now will be decided by his ability to navigate the smoothest possible exit from the administration, the three Republicans say.
There is no indication whether Pompeo has discussed his plans with President Trump. Rumors of a Pompeo Senate campaign have circulated for months, and while Pompeo has said repeatedly that he has no intention of running, he has not ruled out a race. Pompeo aides previously have denied he was planning to step down. They declined to comment on the record for this story.
“Secretary Pompeo is only focused on executing President Trump’s foreign policy goals and completing the mission for the American people at the State Department. Anyone who says otherwise is just wrong,” a person close with the Secretary said.
As impeachment hearings gain steam, Pompeo faces a dilemma, say the three prominent Republicans, all of whom requested anonymity to discuss private conversations with Pompeo. On the one hand, the longer he stays, the greater the criticism of his failure to defend veteran diplomats and longstanding U.S. policies against the President’s politicization of foreign affairs. Pompeo has declined to defend by name either former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch or diplomat William Taylor, both of whom gave damning testimony against Trump this month.
On the other, Trump and his loyalists are blaming Pompeo for the damning testimony of the State Department employees and for what the loyalists perceive as Pompeo’s insufficiently robust defense of the President.
The closest Pompeo has come to publicly criticizing Trump came last month when Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo asked him if the Administration has a broader strategy that included withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria. “My experience with the President is that he makes decisions and then absorbs data and facts, evaluates situations, if we need to adjust our policy to achieve our goals,” Pompeo answered.
Trump has recently groused about Pompeo’s failure to defend him vigorously enough and rein in State Department officials who have told investigators about the Administration’s back channel dealings with Ukraine. The President’s complaints, first reported by NBC News, also have caused Pompeo to reconsider whether sticking with Trump would help or hurt a Senate run, says one of the sources.
Last month, the President criticized Pompeo by name, tweeting that Pompeo “made a mistake” when he hired Taylor, a career Foreign Service officer who had retired and was an executive vice president at the U.S. Institute for Peace. Pompeo chose Taylor to serve as the top American representative in Ukraine after Yovanovitch was recalled as a result of what she called a smear campaign led by Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.
“Pompeo was first in his class at West Point,” says one of the Republicans with whom Pompeo has discussed a Senate run. “He knows that with Trump, loyalty only flows upstream.”
The calculation about when to jump could matter for Pompeo’s chances in Kansas. The state has long been reliably red, but the field is already taking shape for a competitive Republican primary. Former Kansas politician Kris Kobach, current Congressman Roger Marshall and several others have already declared. Others, like state Attorney General Derek Schmidt and former speaker pro-tem of the Kansas House of Representatives Scott Schwab are said to be considering running.
Pompeo has the all-important support of the Koch brothers, which would give him a strong financial base on which to run. But a prominent Kansas Republican tells TIME Pompeo can no longer be considered a shoo-in against other Republican contenders. Although it’s too early to predict, he says, the pain Trump’s trade policies is inflicting on the state’s farmers are threatening to suppress Republican enthusiasm and turnout next year.
“Our farmers aren’t dumb,” says this source, a current officeholder who requested anonymity to discuss party politics. “They know that China isn’t paying for tariffs. They are, because they’re taxpayers helping foot the bill for government subsidies. They also aren’t holding their breath waiting for some big trade deal that has the Chinese buying all their crops.”
Kansas is the nation’s largest wheat-producing state, and although Chinese officials have discussed buying as much as $50 billion worth of American agricultural products in a year as part of a partial trade agreement, the deal has remained elusive.
“If Pompeo was thinking he would cruise across the finish line on Trump’s coattails, he might want to rethink that assumption,” says the Kansas Republican.
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Pentagon chief asks for Navy secretary’s resignation over private proposal in Navy SEAL’s case
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WTFery
Up the chain…Pentagons asks for Navy Secretary’s resignation…all started by T who offered a pardon to Navy Seal.
Kismet @Windthin
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The further decimation of our military leadership under a man who understands nothing of service.
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Pushback…no one is buying it.
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And the resignation letter…
Outgoing Secretary of Navy Spencer does not like the Commander-in-Chief’s actions.
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Wait for it…You’re fired.
T’s leadership by fiat, by Reality TV standards…and because he CAN.
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OMG. Why don’t we just lay out the welcome mat for Russian hackers?
Two top government officials with broad cybersecurity and election-integrity portfolios have announced they are stepping down this month, a loss of expertise in a critical area less than a year before the 2020 presidential election.
Amy Hess, the executive assistant director of the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation will depart for a job as the chief of public services in Louisville, Ky.
Jeanette Manfra, the most senior official dedicated exclusively to cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security, will leave her post at year’s end for a job in the private sector.
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Senior U.S. intelligence officials have warned the elections are likely to be targeted online by Russia and other foreign adversaries following Moscow’s success in disrupting the 2016 race.Ms. Hess’s exit comes barely a year after she assumed her current job at FBI headquarters after previously running the Louisville, Ky., field office. She took the job following a leadership turnover at the FBI cyber division earlier in 2018, as several top executives departed for lucrative private-sector jobs amid concerns about flagging morale.
Mieke Eoyang, vice president of the national security program at the centrist think tank Third Way and a former Democratic intelligence staffer in Congress, said there had been “tremendous turnover of senior cybersecurity personnel” during the Trump administration. Leadership changes, she said, were often more disruptive in the cybersecurity area because the government’s approach to the issue is less institutionalized than in other areas, such as terrorism.
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Ms. Manfra, who oversaw a wide cybersecurity portfolio that included election security at DHS and testified before Congress about Russia’s attempts to breach U.S. election systems during the 2016 presidential campaign, hasn’t revealed her plans after leaving government.Former DHS officials said her departure was a significant loss for DHS, which has often struggled to recruit and retain top cybersecurity personnel, given her experience and popularity with the workforce.
Ms. Hess had been mentioned within the bureau as possibly in line for the FBI’s second- or third-ranking position, according to several former law-enforcement officials. During her short tenure, she oversaw a push to retrain and refocus FBI special agents in core cybersecurity-investigation skills—a shift she compared in an interview with The Wall Street Journal early this year to the bureau’s transformation after the 2001 terrorist attacks.
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Another top White House adviser jumps ship
This was lost in the news blizzard a couple weeks ago, but is getting some play now since his replacement has been announced (see below).
The White House’s chief operations officer is leaving the administration, the White House said on Monday.
Daniel P. Walsh, whose title was deputy chief of staff, was in charge of the administration’s foreign trips, made decisions about the use of government resources by White House aides, oversaw the White House military office and played a critical role in the attempted planning of the Group of Seven summit at the president’s Doral resort, which was scuttled amid backlash over the emoluments clause.
Walsh was in charge of the July 4 Celebration of America on the Mall in Washington, which was derided by critics but seen internally as a rousing success, and was involved in most presidential rallies.
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