So who is Trump’s Chief of Staff? Did Meadows actually get the job? I feel like I missed that storyline when I was out.
I believe he did
Some of those guys were doing some quarantining…at the time. Mulvaney was out. Meadows had to quarantine…
It happened during CPAC…where someone from the administration was positive. Wonder who that was?
Looks like Meadows is transitioning in…
Meet Mark Meadows, The Incoming White House Chief Of Staff : NPR
The coronavirus crisis was gaining steam when President Trump announced via tweet on a Friday night that he was replacing his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, with North Carolina congressman and frequent confidante Mark Meadows.
Nearly three weeks later, Meadows is still transitioning into his new job and hasn’t yet resigned from Congress.
He may have been inside the room at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday for White House negotiations with senators on the $2 trillion coronavirus rescue package — but he still had one foot back in his old job.
Ah-ha. The latest on meadows becoming chief of staff, he finally resigned from Congress. Best of luck on the first day.
Trump fires intelligence community inspector general who defied him on Ukraine
President Donald Trump has fired the intelligence community’s chief watchdog, Michael Atkinson, who was the first to sound the alarm to Congress last September about an “urgent” complaint he’d received from an intelligence official involving Trump’s communications with Ukraine’s president.
Interesting and predictably awful insight on Atkinson’s firing:
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Note that this is from John Solomon, the asshole who created the false Ukraine meddling story. Just the News is his new venture, and you can bet it’s 100% propaganda.
Hmmmm Very convenient to have a lapdog lawyer as your watchdog. Michael Cohen ring any bells?
Atkinson: Trump fired me because I handled whistleblower complaint properly
https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/04/05/atkinson-trump-fired-whistleblower-complaint-167371
"It is hard not to think that the President’s loss of confidence in me derives from my having faithfully discharged my legal obligations as an independent and impartial Inspector General," Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community inspector general said in a statement Sunday, "and from my commitment to continue to do so."
Atkinson was the federal official who revealed to Congress in September the existence of a whistleblower complaint against Trump, which indicated that the president improperly pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rivals. When Atkinson sought to share that complaint with Congress under a federal whistleblower law, the White House and Justice Department intervened and blocked the transmission of the complaint for days.
Grisham out as West Wing press secretary without having held a briefing
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/white-house-press-secretary-is-leaving-job-report-2020-04-07
Stephanie Grisham is out as White House press secretary, will rejoin first lady’s team
Trump removes independent watchdog for coronavirus funds, upending oversight panel
President Donald Trump has upended the panel of federal watchdogs overseeing implementation of the $2 trillion coronavirus law, tapping a replacement for the Pentagon official who was supposed to lead the effort.
A panel of inspectors general had named Glenn Fine — the acting Pentagon watchdog — to lead the group charged with monitoring the coronavirus relief effort. But Trump on Monday removed Fine from his post, instead naming the EPA inspector general to serve as the temporary Pentagon watchdog in addition to his other responsibilities.
That decision, which began circulating on Capitol Hill Tuesday morning, effectively removed Fine from his role overseeing the coronavirus relief effort, since the new law permits only current inspectors general to fill the position.
“Mr. Fine is no longer on the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee," Dwrena Allen, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon inspector general’s office, confirmed. She added that Fine will return to his Senate-confirmed post as principal deputy inspector general of the Pentagon.
Fine’s removal is Trump’s latest incursion into the community of independent federal watchdogs — punctuated most dramatically by his late Friday ouster of the intelligence community’s inspector general, Michael Atkinson, whose handling of a whistleblower report ultimately led to Trump’s impeachment.
More takes on this, none of them good:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-07/trump-ousts-inspector-general-poised-to-oversee-relief-spending
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-watchdog-glenn-fine.html
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-removes-acting-defense-department-inspector-general-11586277895
https://www.axios.com/trump-inspector-general-coronavirus-2b95e865-c8e4-4748-9672-ba844483d847.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-removes-inspector-general-who-was-to-oversee-2-trillion-stimulus-spending/2020/04/07/2f0c6cb8-78ea-11ea-9bee-c5bf9d2e3288_story.html
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/07/politics/trump-sidelines-pentagon-watchdog-coronavirus-funds/index.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twCNN&utm_content=2020-04-07T17:56:15
Acting secretary of the Navy resigns after calling ousted aircraft carrier captain ‘stupid’
While his real crime was how he treated Captain Crozier, I am certain Trump pushed him out because he committed a cardinal sin in Trumpworld: he admitted wrongdoing and apologized.
A few more changes happening now that Mark Meadows is the Chief of Staff…
Meadows is also tapping Alyssa Farah, the current spokeswoman for the Defense Department, to be the director of strategic communications, the two sources said. Ben Williamson, a Meadows staffer, will become the senior communications adviser.
…
It became clear to aides that a shakeup in the communications team could be coming after the deputy communications director, Jessica Ditto, abruptly announced she was leaving her job last week. She had recently moved to a new desk, and the move surprised her colleagues.
A person familiar with the matter said all three newcomers to the White House press shop are expected to work together with Hogan Gidley and Judd Deere, current press aides, on communications issues. With Trump and senior administration officials directly briefing the press on coronavirus each day, the question of how and when McEnany restarts briefings is much less urgent in the press shop shake-up.
McEnany’s credibility as a coronavirus messenger could be tested by comments she made in late February appearing to downplay the severity of the outbreak in the United States.
Mark Meadows is reportedly a crybaby who is “firing people silly-nilly”
For Mark Meadows, Transition From Trump Confidant to Chief of Staff Is a Hard One
In the case of Mr. Meadows, it has not helped him with his White House colleagues that the former North Carolina congressman, who has a reputation for showing his emotions, cried while meeting with members of the White House staff on at least two occasions. One instance was in the presence of a young West Wing aide; another time was with the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
[…]
In the middle of the crisis, Mr. Meadows is trying to reorganize the White House staff. People close to him insisted Mr. Meadows’s nature was not to fire people willy-nilly, but they said that was what he was doing nevertheless.
This is very WTFery…
The doctor who led the federal agency involved in developing a coronavirus vaccine said on Wednesday that he was removed from his post after he pressed for a rigorous vetting of a coronavirus treatment embraced by President Trump. The doctor said that science, not “politics and cronyism” must lead the way.
Dr. Rick Bright was abruptly dismissed this week as the director of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, and as the deputy assistant secretary for preparedness and response.
Instead, he was given a narrower job at the National Institutes of Health. “I believe this transfer was in response to my insistence that the government invest the billions of dollars allocated by Congress to address the Covid-19 pandemic into safe and scientifically vetted solutions, and not in drugs, vaccines and other technologies that lack scientific merit,” he said in a statement to The Times’s Maggie Haberman.
“I am speaking out because to combat this deadly virus, science — not politics or cronyism — has to lead the way,” he said.
The White House declined to comment. A spokeswoman for Alex Azar, the HHS secretary, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Dr. Bright, who noted that his entire career had been spent in vaccine development both in and outside of government, has led BARDA since 2016.
Dr. Bright is getting his story out and also being represented by the lawyers who helped Christine Blasey Ford, a Ms. Debra Katz and Lisa Banks, marshaling his statement as a whistleblower.
A doctor who was removed as head of the federal agency that is helping develop a vaccine for the coronavirus said he was ousted after resisting widespread adoption of a drug promoted by President Donald Trump as a treatment for Covid-19.
Dr. Rick Bright also said that he believed he was removed from his post because he insisted that “the billions of dollars allocated by Congress to address the Covid-19 pandemic” be invested “into safe and scientifically vetted solutions, and not in drugs, vaccines and other technologies that lack scientific merit.”
“I am speaking out because to combat this deadly virus, science — not politics or cronyism — has to lead the way,” Bright said in a statement, which was first reported by The New York Times.
“Rushing blindly towards unproven drugs can be disastrous and result in countless more deaths. Science, in service to the health and safety of the American people, must always trump politics.”
The White House declined to comment. The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bright was removed Tuesday as director the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, a division of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department that is known by the acronym BARDA.
He was given a job with less responsibilities at the National Institutes of Health.
“Sidelining me in the middle of this pandemic and placing politics and cronyism ahead of science puts lives at risk and stunts national efforts to safely and effectively address this urgent public health crisis,” Bright wrote in his statement.
He said that he will ask HHS’s inspector general, an internal ethics watchdog, to “investigate the manner in which this administration has politicized the work of BARDA and has pressured me and other conscientious scientists to fund companies with political connections and efforts that lack scientific merit.”
Bright’s attorneys, Debra Katz and Lisa Banks, said in a prepared statement that “the Administration’s removal of Dr. Bright from his position as director of BARDA is retaliation plain and simple.”
“The results from the Administration’s refusal to listen to the experts and to sideline those like Dr. Bright who point out any errors in the government’s response will continue to be catastrophic for the American people,” said Katz and Banks, whose law firm specializes in representing whistleblowers.
“We will request that the Office of Special Counsel seek a stay of Dr. Bright’s termination and that Dr. Bright be permitted to remain in his position pending the OSC and IG’s investigation of this unlawful forced transfer.”
Katz in 2018 represented Christine Blasey Ford, a Stanford University psychology professor who testified that she was sexually assaulted by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh when they were high school students. Kavanaugh was confirmed for a seat on the high court after Ford’s testimony.
In his statement Wednesday, Bright wrote, “My professional background has prepared me for a moment like this — to confront and defeat a deadly virus that threatens Americans and people around the globe.”
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“To this point, I have led the government’s efforts to invest in the best science available to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.”“Unfortunately, this resulted in clashes with H.H.S. political leadership, including criticism for my proactive efforts to invest early into vaccines and supplies critical to saving American lives. I also resisted efforts to fund potentially dangerous drugs promoted by those with political connections,” he wrote.
Bright also wrote, “Specifically, and contrary to misguided directives, I limited the broad use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, promoted by the administration as a panacea, but which clearly lack scientific merit,” he said.
Trump has suggested that those drugs could be effective in treating Covid-19 patients.
Hydroxychloroquine is normally used to treat malaria.
During the Presser today…T offers nothing on Dr. Bright…nope…never heard of him.
Yeah…WTF