Posted on 10/26/2020 7:58:29 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
This critical problem facing President Trump, should he be reelected, is how to structure his new administration so that he has people loyal to his agenda in critical positions.
As I’ve written before, the problem Trump faced upon his inauguration in 2017 was that he was taking control of a bureaucracy that was (and is) essentially a fiefdom of the Democrat party; a bureaucracy that loathed both Trump and his supporters; a bureaucracy that contributed millions of dollars to the Democrat party and openly cavorted with Democrat politicians. Let’s not forget that the éminence grise behind the Mueller investigation, the famously vicious and amoral and not-very-competent Andrew Weissmann, spent election night at Hillary Clinton’s “victory” party and that Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe openly flouted the Hatch Act by participating in his wife’s campaign for a Virginia state senate seat as a Democrat.
The problem facing Trump is not new. Reformers elected without the support of the existing power structure usually find themselves in a “home alone” situation. To staff an administration once they are victorious, they are forced to draw upon the services of the same people who opposed them tooth and nail and who have a vested interest in retaining the status quo.
With the Trump Administration, the problem was magnified. The Trump campaign did not include a lot of people who you’d want in government; he was inaugurated under a cloud of Russian collusion generated by a smear campaign sponsored by large swaths of the federal intelligence and law enforcement community, his first tranche of cabinet secretaries were mostly chosen for press appeal (Mattis, Tillerson). The loyalists were deeply inept (Sessions) or had character failings that made them easy pickings for a hostile bureaucracy trying to rid themselves of an outsider (Price).
Now, should he win a second term, President Trump has the ability to create an administration that is not actively trying to push him out of office. The first step in this will be to decide who of the current cabinet is signed for a new season and who is put on waivers. According to Jonathan Swan at Axios, a lot of those decisions have been made. Swan is pretty accurate and has the least developed case of TDS in the major media; the title alone makes the story worth reading Scoop: Trump’s post-election execution list.
If President Trump wins re-election, he’ll move to immediately fire FBI Director Christopher Wray and also expects to replace CIA Director Gina Haspel and Defense Secretary Mark Esper, two people who’ve discussed these officials’ fates with the president tell Axios.
The big picture: The list of planned replacements is much longer, but these are Trump’s priorities, starting with Wray.
- Wray and Haspel are despised and distrusted almost universally in Trump’s inner circle. He would have fired both already, one official said, if not for the political headaches of acting before Nov. 3.
This strikes me as true. Wray has coddled and abetted the FBI officials who bastardized the FISA system to carry out political espionage on the Trump campaign. The people who went along with the fraudulent Steele dossier’s insertion into the intelligence stream remain employed. Wray has been at Ground Zero in whitewashing the Antifa (they are an “idea,” donchaknow?) and playing up the specter of white supremacist/white nationalist violence that never seems to materialize. In short, whatever good qualities Wray may have brought to an FBI what had been turned into a partisan hit squad by James Comey have been more than offset by the degree to which he has become a creature of the FBI bureaucracy and an enabler of the worst parts of the FBI culture.
Haspel, one must note, was CIA station chief during the time that Steele was creating his dossier and Halper was creating a fictitious liaison between Mike Flynn and a Russian Ph.D. candidate, and when Downer and Mifsud were acting as agents provocateur with Papadopoulos and Page. It beggars the imagination to think that she was unaware of, if not actively involved in, this sorry episode of the CIA trying to interfere in a US election.
Esper is obviously out of his depth at Defense. Like Wray, any good qualities he may have brought to the job have been overshadowed by the alacrity with which the Defense bureaucracy assimilated him.
According to Swan:
Chris Liddell, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy coordination, is heading the White House’s transition effort, including vetting potential new Cabinet officials, two White House officials told Axios.
He’s working closely with White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Johnny McEntee, who runs the Office of Presidential Personnel and has been conducting “loyalty tests” to weed out “Never Trumpers” from the administration.
That should be the one sure litmus test for anyone being offered a policy role in Trump 2.0. If you have Rick Wilson or Jonah Goldberg or Bill Kristol in your smartphone contacts, you should be barred from holding any position, no matter how minor.
Please tell me what Trey could/should have done. With an apathetic House/AG/FBI Director.
They should also consider Dan Bongino.
The problem is: how can he get loyal people confirmed? Republican Senators don’t want a real FBI or CIA Director any more than the Democrats do.
When these SOB’s get fired who replaces them? The number 2 person in the department who is as bad as the number 1 person?
Nope. Need a policy person to interact with the WH and Congress. Bongino would be a great right-hand man in charge of operations.
RE: When these SOB’s get fired who replaces them?
For one, I wouldn’t mind Rudy Giuliani replacing Chris Wary as FBI director.
How about actually using the investigative powers that a House committee had at its disposal rather than trying for a sound-bite on Fox News? He always seemed much more interested in promoting himself than really proving that crimes had been committed. He is very well placed as a TV commentator where he isn't expected to deliver anything but talk.
With an apathetic House/AG/FBI Director.
If Gowdy couldn't deliver in face of this resistance, what makes you think that he would be more successful fighting the intrenched infrastructure at the FBI?
Ha ha ha...no wait, linda graham. No, even better, mitt romney. LMAO!
Hmmmmm he did use the investigative powers. That is why he and Chaffetz were questioning both the IRS and the Hildabeast.
But neither Nunes nor Meadows nor Jordan put anyone in ClubFed. I am starting to see a pattern emerge: the right people have to be in place because the corruption is so entrenched. That means the AG and the FBI Director because the House has given up their authority to arrest.
That is why this election is so important: they have to get the House in order to gain the chairs of all the committees.
Even Nunes by his own admission, said he was surprised the DemoRats took the path of the Mueller investigation and the constant barrage of a Russia scandal without evidence. And that is when he was the chair of the intel committee.
That tells me none were prepared for this, so it isn’t just Trey’s fault. But no one has a solution what he should have done.
I would invite any FR to call their congresscritter ask what options Trey had at the time. They lies are on Youtube and have been there for years.
You have a better person in mind?
Trump is President for 4 YEARS.....
NOT just 3 years & 10 MONTHS.
He can fire WRAY & others on Wed or Thurs next week.
Correct. Too many people are too impatient and do not consider the possible detrimental effects of their premature actions.
What’s that supposed to mean you pr1ck?
Trey Gowdy is a fake.
IMPATIENT. HOW DARE YOU! WE’VE BEEN WAITING 4 FRACKING YEARS.
Yup, he’s had to do a lot of that over the last four years. He needs to do a better job of vetting his employees. He’s accustomed to believing people are honest and have integrity, something missing in the deep state actors like Mattis.
Trump is focused on, and running a re-election campaign, not reviewing his staff. Since he should have fired Wray years ago, another few months is not going to make a difference except to draw attention to the fact that Trump is firing ANOTHER staff member. Do you want those headlines in the news?
What’s that supposed to mean“
Just what it says. Trump hired these treacherous people. It was known they were part of the swamp. But hired them anyway
No one realized in 2017 how deep and wide the swamp really is. But you are Mr. Hero and know it all.
So shut up pr!ck.
Sorry if truth hurts your ears. You might try earmuffs , just a friendly tip.
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