In a 26 Jul report by the Washington Times; White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci was quoted boasting that he will continue firing people if they are not serving President Trump “honorably.”
“You have a one-in-a-million, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to serve the country and POTUS, and you need to serve honorably. If you can’t do that, I have the stomach and backbone to fire you,” Mr. Scaramucci said.
Lo and behold, Scaramucci was fired on 28 Jul, hardly spending ten days in the White House.
Merely six months have passed since Trump’s move into the White House and its becoming difficult to count the number of staff fired. With that speed, President Trump may have to line up more than 100 people for prospective high position jobs to keep White House running in good order till 2021.
The Observer criticised Mr Trump’s style of governance; stating on 28 Jul that Donald Trump’s catchphrase “you’re fired” from his reality TV show The Apprentice has set the tone for his administration. The underlying theme of the Trump administration has been to simply fire away Trump’s problems, most of which are self-inflicted.
Business Insider reported the list of fallen dominos (either been fired or resigned) in Trump Admiration on 31 July, which is being shared here;
Anthony Scaramucci was hired as White House Communications Director,dismissed in less than two weeks. The decision came at the urging of new White House chief of staff John Kelly
Reince Priebus, the former White House chief-of-staff, was resigned just six months into his tenure after a public feud with Anthony Scaramucci.
Sean Spicer, the embattled White House press secretary, resigned recently after telling Trump he vehemently disagreed with the selection of Anthony Scaramucci as White House communications director.
Michael Dubke, the former White House communications director, resigned in May. Walter Shaub, the former director of the Office of Government Ethics, resigned in Jul after clashing with the White House over Trump’s complicated financial holdings. Shaub called Trump’s administration a “laughingstock,” following his resignation, and advocated for strengthening the US’s ethical and financial disclosure rules, per The New York Times.
Trump fired James Comey as FBI director in May. Comey was handling the investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia during the 2016 election at the time of his ouster, creating a firestorm of controversy for Trump’s administration.
Former National Security Advisor Michael resigned in February after serving in the position for less than a month. Flynn misled Vice President Mike Pence and other administration officials about the contents of his phone conversations with Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the US. Flynn reportedly discussed the Obama administration’s sanctions against Russia with Kislyak prior to Trump assuming office.
Trump fired Sally Yates, the acting attorney general and an appointee of former President Barack Obama, just ten days after assuming office. Yates had refused to uphold the Trump administration’s controversial travel ban in January. Yates denounced the travel ban, which Trump enacted through an executive order, as unlawful. Yates was also instrumental in the events that led to Flynn’s ouster, as she had informed Trump that Flynn could be vulnerable to Russian blackmail days after Trump assumed office.
Trump fired Preet Bharara, the former US Attorney for the Southern District of Manhattan and ‘Sheriff’ of Wall Street, in March after Bharara refused to submit a resignation letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Katie Walsh, the former deputy chief of staff, left the White House just nine weeks into the job to run America First, a pro-Trump group outside of the government.
It is interesting to note that the civilian government of Trump administration has a military face with number of retired generals holding top positions.
Gen John Kelly has been recently sworn in as White House Chief of, General Mark Inch now heads the federal prison system as the new Bureau Of Prisons chief, former Marine Corps General James Mattis is the Defense Secretary, former Marine Corps General John Kelly is the new White House Chief of Staff.
Earlier Trump’s national security advisor Army Lieutenant General HR McMaster replaced Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn and the National Security Council chief of staff is retired Army Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg.
The Russian clouds have not only hovered over the American scene but have started creating a thunder storm on the White House. The who’s who of Russia-gate has now expanded into a complex matrix. In a Washington Post report of 25 July this matrix was deciphered to highlight the tangled web and relationship of various players:
Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner’s circle of friends and business ties includes prominent Russians. He got connected to Rob Goldstone, a publicist for Russian pop star Emin Agalarov, who further told Donald Trump Jr. in June 2016 in an email that a Russian lawyer could provide potentially damaging information against Hillary Clinton. Kushner’s circle includes, Russian Ambassador to US Kislyak, E Galarov, Sergie Gorkov (a banker)and Natalia Veselnitskaya (a Russian lawyer)
Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. was also in touch with almost the same group as of Kushner and has recently tweeted his email exchange with the Russian camp blowing up a firestorm in US polity. It was disclosed by Reuters in March that that 63 people with Russian passports or addresses have invested nearly $100 million in seven Trump properties in South Florida.
Secretary of state and former chief executive of ExxonMobil, Tillerson developed extensive ties in Russia during his tenure with the oil giant.
According to a Ukrainian official, more than $12 million in undisclosed payments were earmarked for Donald Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort by the pro-Russian political party of Ukraine’s then-president, Viktor Yanukovych.
Former national security adviser Lt Gen Flynn resigned as the NSC head after The Washington Post reported that he misled Vice President Mike Pence and others on the true nature of his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, saying he had not privately discussed U.S. sanctions. Speculations are there that that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will resign due to disagreements with Trump.
These are symptoms and not the real disease; we think that President Trump is the sole reason for the chaotic White House, and, American policy makers in the Capitol Hill and general public, especially those who voted for Trump, need to worry on governance style of Donald Trump. Our earlier deliberations published on Donald Trump and his governance styles get reinforced as White House moves from chaos to paralysis.
The writers are freelance columnists.
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