Nominees past and present

If there was one thing you can say about Trump’s last administration – he chose a lot of people who seemed to be great choices at first but did not do terribly well in the long run.

One of them is in the news now, John Bolton. Mr. Trump has rescinded Bolton’s Secret Service protection which was granted after the assassination of Iran’s  Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force in 2020. It should be noted Bolton was fired by the White House in 2019, but Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s Shahram Poursafi who offered to pay up to $300,000 to murder Bolton  was charged in 2022. Bolton says he thinks losing his protection just opens the door for Iran to assassinate him.

When asked by reporters on Tuesday why he stripped Bolton of his security clearance, Trump said, “Because I think that was enough time.”

“We’re not going to have security on people for the rest of their lives,” he said. “Why should we?” Fox News

Ought to be interesting to see what happens. Bet it’s downright fascinating for Bolton.

Moving on, the pick as Underscretary of the Air Force is  Matthew Lohmeier, a former Lieutenant Colonel who was dismissed from the Space Force four years ago.

In 2021, Lohmeier was fired from the Space Force, where he served as a lieutenant colonel, after criticizing the U.S. military on a conservative podcast. Lohmeier joined “The Steve Gruber Show” to discuss his book “Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military,” which claims that Marxist beliefs have become increasingly common in the military. In the same appearance, he also called The New York Times’s 1619 Project “anti-American.”

At the time, the Defense Department said it had lost “trust and confidence” in Lohmeier as the reason for his dismissal.  The Hill

Is this someone the Bidens purged making a comeback? If so, hope he is a tad more discriminating about whom he disses – his new CinC has a long-standing zero-tolerance policy on that from all history.

It does get a little stranger – Trump’s pick to run the Pentagon’s health care system as an Assistant Secretary of Defense, actually has some management experience in a government agency (so much for all those “but he’s inexperienced cat-calls, eh?) Now for the bad news – when he ran the CIA’s 300-strong  Office of Medical Services, he was fired.

Keith Bass, President-elect Trump’s pick to run the Pentagon’s sprawling health care systems, was effectively fired by the CIA in 2021 for his poor management of the spy agency’s Office of Medical Services.

Bass was “pushed out,” two authoritative sources told SpyTalk, after fumbling the agency’s handling of Havana Syndrome, which the government calls Anomalous Health Incidents, or AHI. One of the sources familiar with Bass’s removal, speaking on terms of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue, said the retired former naval officer “was removed” by CIA Director Bill Burns, “not for misconduct,” but because “OMS was being poorly run, and AHI just flushed it out.” Military.com

Well, getting fired can be overlooked, right? Especially when he is jumping to running 48,000 people at the Pentagon?

Some he-said/she-said on security clearances for many new staff – some are complaining that Trump is giving clearances to unvetted people. The FBI says the Trump team stared ‘way late on the vetting process, the Trump team says Biden left a huge backlog for the FBI. Should we note that a huge backlog can be cleared very quickly – “The old guy appointed you. You\’re fired” sounds about right.

However, critics warned that the move could prompt the US’ allies to limit the intelligence they share over fears about unvetted officials putting their sources in danger.

One former official told CNN that skipping the security clearance process was “stupid”, adding: “It’s such a dangerous thing.”  The Telegraph

I would agree, but remembering names like Manning, Texeira, and some others, the track record on VETTED folks ain’t so great.

As I have said before…Trump may or may not be brilliant (depending on what you think of him. I am on record as “not a believer”) but it does seem obvious that his prime criteria are 1) be loyal to him and 2) be rich.

Competency is not listed for a reason.

Category: 2024 Election, Trump!