Posted on 07/31/2017 11:15:05 AM PDT by SJackson
National security adviser H.R. McMaster continues to purge conservatives from the ranks of the National Security Council.
On Thursday, McMaster fired Col. Derek Harvey, a renowned Middle East expert who served under Gen. David Petraeus. Neither the White House nor the National Security Council gave a reason for Harvey’s firing.
Harvey is recognized in national security circles as a brilliant Middle East strategist. The Weekly Standard (which first reported Harvey’s firing) describes him as an “out-of-the-box thinker who has shown a keen knack for identifying threats before they’ve matured.” The report then cites a passage from Bob Woodward’s 2008 book “The War Within,” which delivers an intimate look into Harvey’s remarkable background:
In the late 1980s, Harvey traveled throughout Iraq by taxicab—500 miles, village to village—interviewing locals, sleeping on mud floors with a shower curtain for a door. He [was] full of questions, intensely curious and entirely nonthreatening. After the 1991 Gulf War, when the CIA was predicting the inevitable fall of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Harvey, then a major, insisted that Hussein would survive because members of the Sunni community knew their fortunes were tied to his. He was right. Months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Harvey wrote an intelligence paper declaring that al Qaeda and the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan posed a strategic threat to the United States.
In 2008, Gen. Jack Keane described Harvey as “hands down the very best intelligence analyst that the United States government has on Iraq.”
Harvey released a statement after his firing:
statement just in from Derek Harvey, fired today from NSC: pic.twitter.com/5mn1kBKk42 — Rosie Gray (@RosieGray) July 27, 2017
Harvey was closely involved in president Trump’s efforts to rid the National Security Council of Obama holdovers, who were suspected of leaking national security secrets to the press. After extensive research, Harvey compiled a list of suspected leakers and reportedly delivered it straight to the president, who then took his list to McMaster.
Even though President Trump asked McMaster to fire the individuals on the list, the NSC chief refused the president’s directives to get rid of the Obama holdovers. This comes as Congress continues to sound the alarm about the national security implications of a White House that can’t control the release of classified information.
And as the classified leaks continue to spill into the public domain at a record-high rate, the National Security Council remains staffed with a shockingly high percentage of holdovers from the Obama era. Reached for comment, a White House official estimated that well over fifty percent of the National Security Council staff are Obama holdovers.
But instead of firing the Obama holdovers, McMaster has purged several conservative Trump supporters from the ranks of the NSC.
He has also allowed top officials from President Obama’s White House to come and go in and out of the White House compound as they please. Robert Malley, Obama’s “ISIS czar,” who has been described as an apologist for Islamic terror groups, has met with National Security Council staff on multiple occasions.
Promotions to top positions in the NSC include Kris Bauman, who created President Obama’s West Bank security plan that endangers Israel’s sovereignty. McMaster has placed Bauman in charge of Israeli-Palestinian affairs at the NSC. In his Ph.D. dissertation, Bauman blamed sitting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for “inciting” Palestinian terror and demanded that Israel engage with the Hamas terrorist group. In June, Bauman’s proposal to implement his Obama-era plan into the Trump administration was leaked to anti-Israel Haaretz.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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Fire McMasters. Crap, I hate keeping these Obama lizards around!
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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Who would have thought trump won the election.
Article doesn’t match up with other Harvey articles.
He works for Trump. He carries out Trunp’s orders.
So people are upset that McMaster fires Petraeus guy? Really?
Purging Conservatives or Purging Nevertrumpers?
I watch what politicians do more than what they say. I just don’t understand these actions by the Trump White House. I am very concerned.
On the other hand, I don’t understand why this great guy refused to fire the holdovers. This was a direct order.
Can he do this with impunity? Can the POTUS not fire him for insubordination?...................
Dina Powel. Why do I know that name?
Is she still working for McMaster?
5.56mm
That was the first thing I noticed.
This article is false on its premise.
In a true meritocracy it matters little what someone’s personal politics are, if they aren’t the best at their job, they will be gone. A difficult concept for some FReepers who can only think in ideological terms to grasp.
Harvey says he’s going to continue working for Trump in another capacity. The implication is this is why he’s leaving current position.
looks like mcmaster is flippin trump off.
resistance in action here & I think same thing at DOS
we got the tail waggin the dog.
ooooh almost forgot: IRS, too
all swampers need to be fired.
If they are working for the White House can they be nevertrumpers?
Interesting how much this prig looks like a younger John Brennan.
Dina Powel. Why do I know that name?
Is she still working for McMaster?
5.56mm
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yup powell is an egyption with MB roots.
she’s BFF with huma, too.
she and he boss both need to go
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