Long overdue. While on the one hand, President Trump has brought in loyalists (as well as some recommended staff who turned out not to be loyal), what he did not do right away was to purge the white house staff and the US Attorneys of Obama holdovers. You’ll recall the outrage when GW bush replaced many US Attorneys a couple of years into his administration, but no such outrage when Clinton and Obama did exactly that.
The most egregious problems in this White House, however, have come from the very people who should be the most security-conscious, and yet seem to have no problem seeding the media with information, often false, to Trump’s detriment. I’m talking about the National Security Council (NSC) which is intended to provide the President with accurate advice and information on matters pertaining to national security. Under Obama, this group, which in recent decades has been 75-100 people, ballooned to around 220 people, and especially shortly before the transition to President Trump – can you say “Sabotage?”
To make matters worse, some (many) of these superfluous people were Democrat operatives determined to thwart Trump’s efforts to set a different foreign policy with less troop entanglements. Early in the Administration, sensitive phone calls with foreign leaders were leaked to the press, usually with a twist or lack of context, to make Trump look as bad as possible. The recent Ukraine phone call impeachment sham revealed the contempt of these permanent bureaucrats for anybody trying to disrupt their cozy little schemes. If the President did not follow the staffer’s talking points, he was dangerous, a maverick, not following “the plan” (or is that ‘plot?’). Listening to the self-important troublemakers before Congress, whining that their instructions were not followed, was a great revelation.
At the forefront of the trouble were Eric Ciaramella and his buddy Sean Misko (hired by Schiff) – guilty of targeted leaking without following the proper process, and the brothers Vindman (the Vindmen), of whom Aleksandr was being squeezed out by his superiors for insubordination and loose talk, and Yevgeny was the most likely source of the “leak” from John Bolton’s book manuscript.
Trump has been itching to cut the NSC down to size, ant the recent shenanigans provided the perfect opportunity – no sooner than the shampeachment was over than the Vindmen and their buddy Gordon Sondland were booted for their leaking, followed by around 70 more NSC staffers being sent packing to their original departments in the Pentagon or CIA. (Hanging was obviously not an option – yet!)
Full cartoon by the inimitable Ben Garrison, who has captured the essence perfectly – enjoy:
