Former Defense Secretary Marc Esper with Donald Trump (File)


ORIGINAL ENTRY, NOV. 13:

Donald Trump’s camp have pushed out more high-level staff at the Pentagon.

After Trump fired Defense Secretary Marc Esper and forced the resignation of the head of policy James Anderson, the expected departures of Esper’s chief of staff Jen Stewart and Joseph Kernan, the Pentagon’s top intelligence official, have followed.

On Thursday, Esper’s deputy chief of staff Alexis Ross resigned.

As expected, Stewart has been replaced by Trump loyalist Kash Patel, who was senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council.


ORIGINAL ENTRY, NOV. 11: Furious over his election loss to Joe Biden and seeing “disloyalty” within US agencies, Donald Trump is wreaking his vengeance on the civilian leadership of the Pentagon.

On Monday, Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper in a hyperbolic tweet about “termination”:

Trump had been embittered that Esper and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, did not back his June 1 walk from the White House to St. John’s Church across the street. The photo op stroll, in which Trump held a Bible upside down, came after he threatened to send in US troops to confront anti-racism marches — and after security forces, on the orders of Attorney General William Barr, tear gassed peaceful demonstrators in Lafayette Park outside the White House.

See TrumpWatch, Day 1,239: Black Lives Matter — Gen. Milley Apologizes Over Trump Tear Gas Photo Op

But Trump did not stop with Esper. On Tuesday, three sources confirmed that Trump fired the Pentagon’s top policy official.

James Anderson, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and the Acting Undersecretary, was dismissed, according to three sources. He was given the option to resign or be fired by Christopher Miller, the new Acting Defense Secretary.

Anderson’s offense was his objection to Trump packing the Defense Department with unqualified loyalists seen as extremist in their views. They included Anthony Tata, a conspiracy theorist and former Fox News contributor, and Rich Higgins, a former National Security Council staffer who circulated a conspiratorial memo. Anderson’s office also objected to the hiring of Frank Wuco, a former State Department official and radio host who posed as a fictional jihadi.

Anderson has been replaced by Tata, whose nomination as Undersecretary for Policy was withdrawn in August over conspiratorial and Islamophobic comments. He falsely claimed that former CIA Director John Brennan ordered the assassination of Trump via a coded message on social media, said former President Barack Obama is a “terrorist leader”, and called Islam “most oppressive violent religion I know of”.

In a resignation letter to colleagues, Anderson praised the “dedicated team of national security professionals” with whom he worked: “It is clear that despite profound national security and defense challenges, America is more secure than it was four years ago.”

He implicitly referred to the danger of Trump’s maneuvers and refusal to accept the November 3 election: “Now, as ever, our long-term success depends on adhering to the U.S. Constitution all public servants swear to defend.”

Officials expect that Joseph Kernan, the Pentagon’s top intelligence official, and Jen Stewart, Esper’s Chief of Staff and the head of the transition to the Biden Adminsitration, will be the next to be dismissed.

Pentagon officials have been told they can have no contact with the Biden team until the General Services Administration gives the go-ahead. But GSA head Emily Murphy has not issued the letter to start the process.

Kash Patel, a former National Security Council official who House Republicans with attempts to bury the Trump-Russia investigation, may replace Stewart. Kernan could give way to Ezra Cohen-Watnick, who was dismissed from the National Security Council after his patron, National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, was fired and indicted for lying to the FBI.

“They are filling all of the positions with political types not policy people,” said a “former senior administration official”.