My God this Administration is such a s#%t show. When are Trump supporters finally going to realize that?
Dan Coats, Trump’s top intel official, to depart White House
https://news.yahoo.com/dan-coats-trumps-top-intel-193628320.html
FYI, John Ratcliffe sits on both the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees and has had full access to all the documents available.
Spinning Ratcliffe’s background to fit the bill…hmmm
U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman is resigning from his post effective Oct. 3, according to a letter first reported by the Salt Lake Tribune.
Why it matters: Huntsman is a two-term governor of Utah and former ambassador to China under President Obama who was diagnosed with cancerlast year. His resignation is fueling speculation that he may again run for governor of Utah, per the Tribune. Huntsman faced calls to resign after the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki last summer, but said he would stay on out of commitment to his colleagues and country in this “fragile” era of U.S.-Russia relations.
Kimberly Breier resigns as assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere
Kimberly Breier, the assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere since October, has resigned, leaving a key vacancy at the top of the diplomatic office in charge of the Trump administration’s efforts to control immigration from Mexico and Central America, and to build stronger partnerships in South America.
U.S. officials said that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this week accepted her letter of resignation, which cited personal reasons. Her departure is expected to be announced Thursday.
I can no longer justify being a part of Trump’s ‘Complacent State.’ So I’m resigning.
Chuck Park’s resignation from the Foreign Service is effective Thursday.
Hmmmmmm
This comes from The Guardian who lists issues as they come…so that is the correct artlcle…fyi
State Department suspends staffer over reported ties to white supremacist group
The State Department has suspended a staffer in its energy bureau after the Southern Poverty Law Center reported that he had ties to a white supremacist group.
The SPLC reported:
The official, Matthew Q. Gebert, works as a foreign affairs officer assigned to the Bureau of Energy Resources, a State Department spokesperson told Hatewatch. Online, and in private correspondences with other white nationalists, Gebert uses ‘Coach Finstock’ as a pseudonym. Through that alias, he expressed a desire to build a country for whites only.
‘[Whites] need a country of our own with nukes, and we will retake this thing lickety split,’ ‘Coach Finstock’ said on a May 2018 episode of ‘The Fatherland,’ a white nationalist podcast. ‘That’s all that we need. We need a country founded for white people with a nuclear deterrent. And you watch how the world trembles.’
Former State Department officials expressed shock that Gebert was able to obtain a security clearance. “If Gebert was Muslim or a person of color, it would have been caught,” Amos Hochstein, who was Gebert’s boss at the State Department, told Politico. “Neo-Nazis are not all shaved heads and tattoos, they are hiding in plain sight. I’m horrified Gebert worked for me at the State Department.“
Update:
U.S. Deputy Intelligence Director Is Out After Trump Meeting
The deputy director of national intelligence, Sue Gordon, will leave her position following a meeting with President Donald Trump on Thursday, according to people familiar with the matter.
Who else thinks, “to spend more time the family” is just a euphemism for they were fired?
John Gore, the main Justice Department official behind the Trump administration’s failed push to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, is set to leave the department Friday.
A person familiar with the matter tells NPR Gore plans to spend time with his family while he is “discerning next steps.”
Gore, who has been serving as the principal deputy assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, is among the administration officials currently facing allegations of providing false testimony and concealing evidence as part of the lawsuits over the citizenship question. In a recent court filing, Gore denied the claims made by advocacy groups represented by the ACLU, New York Civil Liberties Union and the Arnold & Porter.
After Epstein’s death, attorney general replaces leader at Bureau of Prisons
Attorney General William P. Barr announced Monday that he is replacing the head of the Bureau of Prisons, in the latest fallout from the death in federal custody of multimillionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Hugh J. Hurwitz, the acting head of the agency, will be replaced by Kathleen Hawk Sawyer, who previously served as Bureau of Prisons director from 1992 to 2003.
Barr also appointed Thomas R. Kane to serve as her deputy, a position that is currently vacant.
More,
Sarah Huckabee Sanders has gone back to Faux News as a contributor.
We may need a new thread just for people who have come to or gone back to them. Seriously.
This in a way is very much related.
David Koch is dead.
I won’t celebrate death, not even of a man who has done as much to tear down the American dream as David Koch.
A life gone means no chances to learn or grow or change.
The only thing I am glad for is that he can’t push his noxious world views now.
Time to move on. Work to do.
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan’s top aide and spokesperson is resigning amid frustration in the White House over the Department of Homeland Security’s handling of major policy rollouts and White House distrust of McAleenan and his inner circle, sources familiar with his resignation tell Axios.
Why it matters: Andrew Meehan’s departure comes amid broader internal tensions between the White House and DHS leadership. President Trump is wary of McAleenan, whom he associates with the Obama administration, and his top aides, several current and former administration officials tell us. These sources say Trump has no intention of formally nominating McAleenan for a permanent position.
…
Behind the scenes: These growing tensions were exacerbated by what some White House officials saw as DHS’ botched rollout of a new proposal that would reverse the Flores agreement, a decades-old court decision that prevents the government from holding minors in detention for longer than 20 days with their parents, per sources with direct knowledge.
…
The big picture: McAleenan’s position at DHS has been fraught for weeks, and it’s an open secret within the White House and DHS that Trump prefers acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director Ken Cuccinelli and acting Customs and Border Protection director Mark Morgan, who have fiercely defended his immigration policies on TV.
- Aug. 29, 2019, 8:37 p.m. ET
President Trump’s personal assistant, Madeleine Westerhout, whose office sits in front of the Oval Office and who has served as the president’s gatekeeper since Day 1 of his administration, resigned on Thursday, two people familiar with her exit said.
Ms. Westerhout’s abrupt and unexpected departure came after Mr. Trump learned on Thursday that she had indiscreetly shared details about his family and the Oval Office operations she was part of during a recent off-the-record dinner with reporters staying at hotels near Bedminster, N.J., during the president’s working vacation, according to one of the people, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss White House personnel issues.
The breach of trust meant immediate action: Ms. Westerhout, one of the people familiar with her departure said, was immediately considered a “separated employee” and would not be allowed to return to the White House on Friday.
Brian Stelter <[email protected]>
BREAKING:
NYT: Trump’s personal assistant exits…
…After off-the-record dinner with reporters
Trump’s personal assistant Madeleine Westerhout resigned on Thursday. NYT’s Annie Karni and Maggie Haberman, who broke the news, said the “abrupt and unexpected departure” came after Trump discovered she had “indiscreetly shared details about his family and the Oval Office operations she was part of during a recent off-the-record dinner with reporters staying at hotels near Bedminster.”
>> A W.H. correspondent notes: “These off the record dinners are par for the course during these trips. Someone was clearly targeting her…”
Joe Balash worked to widen oil and gas leasing on federal land until he stepped down from the Interior Department Friday. This week, he’s joining Oil Search Ltd – a firm that’s expanding its drilling operations in Alaska.
Bolton is toast.
Bolton replies on twitter,
The final straw seems to be the peace deal with the Taliban.
Mr. Bolton’s departure comes as Mr. Trump is pursuing diplomatic openings with some of the United States’ most intractable enemies, efforts that have troubled hard-liners in the administration, like Mr. Bolton, who view North Korea and Iran as profoundly untrustworthy.
He spent much of the last week waging a last-minute battle to prevent Mr. Trump from signing off on a peace agreement with the Taliban militant organization, which he viewed as anathema — a deal that the president was preparing to finalize by inviting the Taliban leaders to Camp David.
Mr. Bolton urged Mr. Trump to reject the agreement, arguing that the president could still withdraw troops from Afghanistan to fulfill his campaign promise without getting in bed with an organization responsible for killing thousands of Americans over the last 18 years.
Mr. Trump ultimately did scrap plans for the Camp David meeting and said on Monday that talks with the Taliban were now “dead.” But he was irritated by Mr. Bolton, who was feuding with Mr. Pompeo for months.
Mr. Bolton saw his job as stopping Mr. Trump from making unwise agreements with America’s enemies. “While John Bolton was national security adviser for the last 17 months, there have been no bad deals,” a person close to Mr. Bolton said minutes after the president’s announcement on Tuesday, reflecting the ousted adviser’s view.
To Mr. Bolton’s aggravation, the president has continued to court Kim Jong-un, the repressive leader of North Korea, despite Mr. Kim’s refusal to surrender his nuclear program and despite repeated short-range missile tests by the North that have rattled its neighbors. In recent days, Mr. Trump has expressed a willingness to meet with President Hassan Rouhani of Iran under the right circumstances, and even to extend short-term financing to Tehran, although the offer has so far been rebuffed.