And now the revenge carnage begins!
Freshly acquitted by spineless mealy-mouthed hypocrisy filled Republicans of the Senate, Trump tossed both Vindman brothers and then took aim at Gordon Sondland.
Star Impeachment Witnesses Removed
Gary Varvel, creators.com (2018)
Trump replaces Mick Mulvaney with Mark Meadows as chief of staff
By Kevin Liptak, Kaitlan Collins, Maegan Vazquez and Caroline Kelly, CNN
Updated 10:22 PM ET, Fri March 6, 2020
(CNN)President Donald Trump announced late Friday that he was replacing his acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, with Republican Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, a shake-up in the top echelons of the West Wing just as the President confronts a growing public health crisis and girds for reelection.
Meadows, who had previously announced he was leaving Congress, will become Trump's fourth chief of staff in a little more than three years in office. In a tweet, Trump did not denote him "acting," a designation Mulvaney never graduated from in the turbulent 14 months he spent in the job.
"I am pleased to announce that Congressman Mark Meadows will become White House Chief of Staff. I have long known and worked with Mark, and the relationship is a very good one," Trump tweeted Friday just after arriving at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Trump, who did not immediately offer an explanation for the swap, thanked Mulvaney and said he said would become special envoy for Northern Ireland.
"I want to thank Acting Chief Mick Mulvaney for having served the Administration so well. He will become the United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland," Trump added. "Thank you!"
It was an abrupt announcement of news that had been anticipated for weeks. It continues a churn of staffing changes that followed Trump's impeachment acquittal a month ago.
Trump offered the position to Meadows on Thursday, people familiar with the matter said. Mulvaney was on a personal trip and not at work Friday, two officials said. Some staffers found it odd that the acting chief of staff would leave Washington during such a critical time while the administration is dealing with the coronavirus crisis.
But Mulvaney also did not attend several of Trump's recent trips -- including a campaign swing in the Western United States and his state visit to India -- which is a pattern his predecessors also followed before they were dismissed.
Though Mulvaney had been a fixture of Trump's administration in various roles over the past three years, the President effectively lost confidence in him months ago, a combination of personality conflicts and frustration at his handling of the impeachment ordeal.
Trump, who had considered dismissing Mulvaney at various junctures, was convinced not to act by close aides, who argued a leadership change in the White House during impeachment could cause unnecessary chaos.
In a statement Friday night, Meadows called it "an honor" to be selected by the President for the job, though the move surprised few in Trump's circle. After being one of the first Republican lawmakers to campaign with Trump ahead of the 2016 election, while others were initially keeping their distance, Meadows has become one of Trump's closest advisers.
He is a regular presence in the West Wing and has developed a close relationship with Trump's son-in-law and daughter, senior advisers Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump -- a staple of West Wing proximity.
While Meadows was still occupying his congressional seat after announcing his departure, he had been speaking with the President several times a day on the phone and advising him on a wide variety of matters, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The President is also a fan of Debbie Meadows, the new chief of staff's wife, who stepped in as one of Trump's only female surrogates after the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape was published a month ahead of the 2016 election.
Before the 2005 tape, which featured Trump making vulgar comments, was released on a Friday afternoon, Debbie Meadows had already made plans with several other lawmakers' wives to embark on a "WOMEN FOR TRUMP" tour the next day. Despite expectations she would cancel the tour after the tape was released, she maintained her plans and continued to campaign for Trump, something the President often tells people he has never forgotten.
In his new role, Meadows will have one quality his predecessors lacked: strong relationships with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Not only was Meadows a member of the conservative Freedom Caucus during his time on Capitol Hill, he also has ties with several Democratic lawmakers.
The chief of staff role, traditionally one of the most important in any administration, has been a famously difficult one in the Trump era. All three of his chiefs have tried different governing styles, but the result is nearly always the same: The President ultimately makes the decisions, and eventually undercuts his top deputy.
Meadows will take over just as one of Trump's closest former advisers, Hope Hicks, is returning, creating a sense of new leadership in the West Wing. He's expected to play a prominent role in the President's reelection campaign.
Efforts to replace Mulvaney had been in the works since October. According to several sources familiar with the matter, the President often ignored Mulvaney's input and opted on multiple occasions to do the opposite of whatever he suggested.
Mulvaney himself had become increasingly unhappy in his role, aware that it had been diminished, people familiar with the dynamics said.
Before taking the post previously occupied by Reince Priebus and John Kelly, Mulvaney had lobbied for the Northern Ireland envoy role, people familiar with the matter said. The posting has been vacant since 2017, even as the power-sharing government in Belfast faced a crisis.
The former South Carolina congressman was ensnared in the impeachment inquiry over his involvement in the Trump administration's effort to withhold disbursing security aid to Ukraine.
Last October, Mulvaney irritated Trump by confirming during a news briefing that the President had frozen the security aid in part to pressure the country to investigate Trump's Democratic rivals.
He later tried to walk back his statement.
"I have news for everybody: Get over it. There's going to be political influence in foreign policy," Mulvaney said during the briefing.
Following the President's request on holding the Ukraine aid last summer, Mulvaney was warned by a staff member at the White House Office of Management and Budget when he asked whether a hold could be justified, according to The New York Times.
"I'm just trying to tie up some loose ends," Mulvaney wrote in a June 27 email, according to the Times. "Did we ever find out about the money for Ukraine and whether we can hold it back?"
Mulvaney was subpoenaed by House Democrats as part of the impeachment investigation but the White House asserted executive privilege and he never testified.
Mulvaney took the chief of staff role after serving as director of the Office of Management and Budget, a role he'd held since the start of the Trump administration. Mulvaney also served as the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from 2017 to 2018.
He acknowledged during remarks last month in the United Kingdom that maintaining the "acting" title allowed him to pull in a higher salary, since he was technically still acting as the OMB chief. He is stepping down from that role to assume the envoy position.
Mulvaney moved into the White House role after Nick Ayers, Vice President Mike Pence's former chief of staff, declined an offer from the President to replace Kelly.
As he considered naming a new chief of staff this time, Trump was cautious not to repeat the Ayers situation, wary of shoving aside Mulvaney without a replacement who would agree to take the job.
@ehBeth,
Quite clearly, there is no longer a need for Counterterrorism, seeing as how the virus that both 'snuck up' and which the President had known about for 'a long time', takes precedence over people who may have knowledge of how the DNI operates.
(plus, I am almost nearly quite possibly closely certain, the Covid-19 wiped out terrorism in the same way that the President eradicated ISIS
) ((and the White House resident would likely say it himself if he wasn't playing with his magic marker right now))
Grisham out as West Wing press secretary without having held a briefing
By Kaitlan Collins and Kate Bennett, CNN
Updated 10:39 AM ET, Tue April 7, 2020
(CNN)White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham is leaving the job without ever having briefed the press. CNN has learned she is returning to the East Wing as first lady Melania Trump's chief of staff as President Donald Trump's new chief of staff Mark Meadows shakes up the communications team in the West Wing.
Meadows is currently considering several candidates for the press secretary job, including Trump campaign spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany. The new chief of staff is also considering hiring Alyssa Farah, the current spokeswoman for the Defense Department, for a communications role, among others, two sources with knowledge of the situation told CNN.
Farah has held several roles in the Trump administration. After leaving her job as the spokeswoman for the House Freedom Caucus to become Vice President Mike Pence's press secretary, she moved to the Pentagon last August. But this would be her first position in the West Wing. Farah has remained close with Meadows since her days at the Freedom Caucus.
Grisham, who still speaks with first lady Melania Trump on a daily basis, is returning to where she has spent the majority of her time in the administration, the East Wing. She is replacing Lindsay Reynolds, who resigned as the first lady's chief of staff early this week to spend time with her family.
"I continue to be honored to serve both the President and first lady in the administration," Grisham said in a statement. "My replacements will be announced in the coming days and I will stay in the West Wing to help with a smooth transition for as long as needed."
Melania Trump also issued a statement announcing Grisham's return and thanking Reynolds for her service.
"I am excited to welcome Stephanie back to the team in this new role," she said. "She has been a mainstay and true leader in the administration from even before Day 1, and I know she will excel as chief of staff. I appreciate all that Lindsay Reynolds did over the past three years, and wish her well in her future endeavors."
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.
In recent weeks, Grisham stopped regularly attending senior staff meetings and has not played a major role as the administration has dealt with the coronavirus outbreak. After Vice President Mike Pence was tasked to lead the task force, his communications team took over as well.
Though Grisham initially told people she planned to revive the daily press briefing that previous press secretary Sarah Sanders abandoned by the end of her tenure, she never did, which she often said was at the President's direction. She rarely strayed from interviews with Fox News Channel, which she did from the channel's Washington bureau, denying reporters the chance to question her during walk-and-talk gaggles on the White House driveway.
Once a campaign aide, Grisham wrangled media as Trump canvassed the country ahead of the 2016 election. After Trump took office, she became the deputy press secretary in the West Wing during Sean Spicer's tenure as press secretary before becoming Melania Trump's communications director.
She quickly formed the first lady's forward-facing presence, and made a name for herself as a dogged, if caustic, defender. Dubbed "the enforcer" in a 2018 Washington Post profile, Grisham's job was to thwart as much as possible the criticism levied at the first lady on topics that ranged from picking cyberbullying as part of her platform to Melania Trump's need for privacy during a secretive kidney operation in April 2018.
When Sanders left the White House in June last year, Grisham kept the title of Melania Trump's communications director and added two more: press secretary and communications director. But Grisham's three-in-one role was less a juggling act and more a sign of how diminished the public-facing positions have become under a President who often serves as his own spokesman.
The role was also a new challenge for her. She was now in charge of several staffers, as opposed to the tight-knit first lady's office.
Grisham recently self-quarantined at her home after she was one of several people, including the President, who came into contact with a Brazilian official who later tested positive for coronavirus. Grisham's test was negative.
Grisham's future in the West Wing also seemed unclear after Hope Hicks, one of the President's closest confidantes, returned to the White House, to work underneath senior White House adviser and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. Not only was she one of his closest advisers, Trump often relies on Hicks for helping broadcast his message because he views her as communications savvy.
Hicks and Kushner had a key role in planning Trump's Oval Office address about coronavirus. Grisham, according to a White House official, was not involved in devising messaging for the address, nor was she in the Oval Office with Kushner and adviser Ivanka Trump during the live broadcast.
It's not unusual for a new chief of staff to bring a coterie of aides with him into the West Wing. Trump's first chief of staff Reince Priebus ushered in several officials, including Trump's first press secretary Spicer, into the White House. John Kelly brought his chief of staff from the Department of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, until she ultimately became Department of Homeland Security secretary herself. And Mick Mulvaney even hired his own national security adviser when he occupied the chief of staff's office.
Though press briefings in the Trump administration were once must-see television that garnered high ratings, the press secretary has not taken questions from reporters in the briefing room since in more than a year. It is the longest an administration has gone without an on-camera briefing since they were first aired during President Bill Clinton's administration. Trump has recently turned the abandoned room into his new stage from which to broadcast his message during the coronavirus pandemic.
Every chief of staff in the Trump White House has hoped to turn the communications office into a more impressive conglomeration. The communications team, which under Grisham includes about 35 people, has long drawn the ire of dozens of senior staffers, including Trump himself at times, who have blamed them for failing to blunt PR missteps and allowing them to turn into full-blown disasters. Aides in those roles have at times struggled with pushing a message for a capricious President who has an iPhone equipped with Twitter with him at all times.
Trump recently hinted he was displeased with his White House's communication effort recently while discussing how his administration has done in managing the coronavirus.
"We've done a poor job on press relationships, and I guess, I don't know who to blame for that," Trump said. "Maybe I can blame ourselves for that. I will blame ourselves. But I think we've done a great job. I think we've done a poor job in terms of press relationship."
prepping
yanno
just in case
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Esper
Quote:Mark Thomas Esper (born April 26, 1964)[1][2] is the 27th and current United States secretary of defense, and a former U.S. Army officer and defense contractor lobbyist. He previously served as the 23rd United States secretary of the Army from 2017 to 2019. President Donald Trump announced on June 18, 2019, that Esper would become acting secretary of defense, succeeding acting secretary Patrick Shanahan.[3] Before Shanahan withdrew his name from consideration for the position, Esper had been considered a leading candidate for the nomination, had the Senate declined to confirm Shanahan.[4] Esper assumed the office of acting secretary on June 24, and was confirmed as 27th secretary of defense by the United States Senate with a vote of 90–8 on July 23, 2019.[5]
A West Point graduate, Esper began his career with decorated service as a commissioned officer in the United States Army. Later, he served as a Senate staffer, chief of staff at The Heritage Foundation, and Vice President for Government Relations at the Raytheon Company.
Quote:Esper was chief of staff at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, from 1996 to 1998.
Quote:Secretary of the Army
President Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate Esper as Secretary of the Army on June 19, 2017.[19] He was Trump's third nominee for the position, following the withdrawals of Vincent Viola and Mark E. Green.[20] He was confirmed to this post by an 89–6 vote of the U.S. Senate on November 15, 2017[21] and sworn in on November 20, 2017.
While serving as Army Secretary, Esper was asked by reporters in 2018 whether soldiers had concerns about serving beside openly transgender individuals. He replied that "It really hasn't come up."[22] After he was nominated to become Secretary of Defense, he said that being transgender is not an issue with him, stating that he has met several transgender servicemembers and was impressed with many of them. He supports Directive-type Memorandum-19-004, claiming it is not a "blanket ban" on transgender military service and said that he believes anyone who can meet the military standards without "special accommodations" and is worldwide deployable should be able to serve, including transgender individuals as long as they can adhere to cisgendered standards associated with their biological sex. He said people in the military with gender dysphoria would have their condition assessed and "in many cases", be offered waivers that would allow them to serve. He cited the United States Department of Defense's 2018 Report and Recommendations on Military Service by Transgender Persons, which claims that persons who have a history of gender dysphoria, who have undergone medical treatments for gender transition, or who are unable or unwilling to meet the military's standards associated with their biological sex, could hurt military readiness and effectiveness and should be evaluated to see whether they should be retained or expelled from service.[23][24]
Quote:Tenure
Esper inspects troops alongside Vietnamese defense minister Ngô Xuân Lịch in Hanoi, November 20, 2019
Esper has said that his operating positions as Secretary of Defense would be apolitical, in keeping with the National Defense Strategy formulated in 2018 by his predecessor Jim Mattis.[32]
On November 24, 2019, during a dispute regarding whether Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher would be stripped of his Trident pin, Esper fired the United States secretary of the Navy, Richard Spencer. The Department of Defense attributed the firing to Spencer privately proposing to the White House (without informing Esper, and contrary to Spencer's public position) an arrangement to let Gallagher retire while keeping his Trident pin. On November 25, Esper stated that Trump had ordered him to stop the Navy from conducting a peer review regarding Gallagher's right to wear the pin. Esper said he previously supported the peer review, but followed Trump's order.[33] Meanwhile, President Donald Trump cited the Gallagher case as the primary reason for Esper's firing of Spencer, while offering a second reason: that "large cost overruns" had not been mitigated.[34]
Esper met with his European counterparts in February 2020 to discuss basing options for a new United States Army headquarters in Europe, bearing the name "V Corps" that had originally been established in World War I but was inactivated while stationed in Germany in 2013. Esper stated the new headquarters was needed to improve military coordination among NATO partners.[35]
On June 1, 2020 in response to protests against police brutality and racism in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, Esper told state governors, “We need to dominate the battle space."[36]
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https://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-not-happy-with-esper-after-military-response-remarks-2020-6
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not sure what happened in less than 24 hours to change his messaging so dramatically
@Region Philbis,
Surprised it took so long. Been expecting this since the Tulsa show.
