Free Republic

The Department of Homeland Security has dismissed the members of its advisory committees—including the Cyber Safety Review Board, which investigates major cybersecurity incidents—as part of a Trump-administration drive to cut costs at the agency, according to three people familiar with the matter. An internal Jan. 20 memo from DHS Acting Secretary Benjamine Huffman said, “In alignment with the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) commitment to eliminating the misuse of resources and ensuring that DHS activities prioritize our national security, I am directing the termination of all current memberships on advisory committees within DHS, effective immediately...Future committee activities will be focused...

The State Department’s top security officer is coming under scrutiny for playing a role in creating a special board that is investigating last month’s fatal attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. One of the State Department’s accountability review board’s key tasks will be to probe why the office of Patrick Kennedy, undersecretary of state for management, rejected requests for more diplomatic security in Libya in the weeks leading up to the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. Mr. Kennedy, a career diplomat whose portfolio includes being the top security officer, signed the memo Oct. 1 that set up the review...

Governor Keating Resigns From National Review Board WASHINGTON (June 16, 2003) -- In a letter to Belleville Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating resigned from the National Review Board which he chairs. Governor Keating, who now heads the American Council of Life Insurers, indicated that his resignation is effective immediately. The texts of the letter from Governor Keating to Bishop Gregory and Bishop Gregory's response follow: Dear Bishop Gregory: As I have shared with you over the last two months, I intended to relinquish my chairmanship of...

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) _ A former head FBI agent will join a group of mental health and counseling professionals and clergy on the Diocesan Review Board newly created to review allegations of sexual misconduct by priests. Bishop James Moynihan announced Thursday that Les Amann would serve as chairman of the six-member board the diocese created in April to help address the widening priest sex abuse scandal confronting the Catholic Church in America. Amann was an FBI agent for nearly 30 years, incluti.o 14 as the senior supervisory resident agent in Syracuse. He now owns an investigative and security consulting firm....