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With Trump deviancy keeps getting defined down. The norm in his Administration is incompetence, corruption and in many cases criminality.
Rex Tillerson was not a good Secretary of State-quite the contrary, he was probably the worst ever; certainly his reign has been a disaster for State. He came into the job with no relevant experience or qualifications for the job. He had no experience in terms of diplomacy but was an Exxon Mobil executive who once received the Order of Friendship from Vladimir Putin. Congresswoman Maxine Waters always argued he was there for one purpose-to get rid of the sanctions.
And under his reign at State the Administration tried many times to undermine the sanctions and slow walked the new Russia sanctions Congress passed last Summer. Now, as Tillerson leaves, the announcement that the Administration will finally implement some sanctions was timed to the day of the announcement that he’s leaving.
Trump also gave him the Comey treatment as Tillerson learned he was fired on cable news-Trump had wanted to fire him on Twitter. No doubt Trump wanted to humiliate him as much as possible because Tillerson called him a ‘f-ing moron’ last Summer.
Again, Tillerson was a disaster at State-he administered the total dismantling of the State department. But between the sympathy that he garners for the way Trump treated him and from the sympathy he no doubt garners for calling Trump a ‘f-ing moron’ it’s easy to lose sight of how bad he was.
But as bad as Rex was, Pompeo may well be worse. Tillerson at least had an independent streak-Pompeo from what’s been reported is an arch Trump loyalist who is always sucking up in order to advance his own career.
So Tillerson was a disaster but Pompeo may well be worse:
“The firing of Tillerson was hardly a surprise, and many people have been expecting it ever since it was reported in October that Tillerson had called Trump a “f—ing moron” in a meeting with other administration officials (which Tillerson then refused to deny). Nobody likes to be called a moron, of course, but it had to have been particularly painful for someone as obviously insecure about their intellect as Trump is. And back in November, the New York Times reported that the White House had developed a plan to replace Tillerson with Pompeo.
“But what’s most notable is that Tillerson wasn’t fired because he has been eviscerating the State Department, crushing staff morale and leading to an exodus of experienced diplomats. As Dexter Filkins of the New Yorker wrote in November, “In only ten months, Tillerson, the former C.E.O. of ExxonMobil, has presided over the near-dismantling of America’s diplomatic corps, chasing out hundreds of State Department employees and scaling back the country’s engagement with the world.”
As Paul Waldman notes in the link above the immediate event that likely triggered Tillerson’s dismissal was his agreeing with Theresa May that Russia was behind the recent attempted poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal:
“This is not some kind of controversial opinion; indeed, the idea that Russia wasn’t behind Skripal’s attempted murder is simply laughable on its face. He was poisoned with an exotic chemical in a fashion plainly meant to draw maximum attention and make Russian responsibility clear, in order to send a deterrent message to anyone who might be thinking of crossing Putin.”
And yet Trump and those who work for him are acting like it could have been Russia, but it could also have been the government of Liechtenstein or a One Direction splinter group. “We’re speaking with Theresa May today,” Trump said. “As soon as we get the facts straight, if we agree with them, we will condemn Russia or whoever it may be.” Here’s a prediction: the president will not be condemning Russia.
But Tillerson’s dismantling the State Department didn’t phase Herr Trump at all-probably quite the opposite as it’s what Russia wanted.
“That didn’t seem to bother the president. Speaking today, Trump cited the fact that Tillerson didn’t want to tear up the Iran nuclear agreement. Then he grew contemplative. “For whatever reason, chemistry, whatever it is. Why do people get along?” he asked. “I’ve always right from the beginning from day one, I’ve gotten along well with Mike Pompeo.”
Actually the reason is not hard to ascertain-Pompeo sees his role as being loyal to the so-called ‘President’-rather than to the Constitution or his own agency or role.
“Remember Pompeo is the one director of a major US intel agency who has not revealed that Trump asked in some way for loyalty. Comey, Mike Rogers at NSA, Dan Coats at DNI have all revealed Trump approached them to in some way cover his ass. Pompeo stands out in not making any such revelation.”
Why is this? Because Trump didn’t ask for loyalty from the one intel agency head who was most loyal?
So Tillerson was a terrible Secretary of State who got fired for his moments of relative sanity-he did support the Iran deal, did call out Russia for the recent attempted assassination in Britain-and because he did have an independent streak.
But Pompeo between his partisanship, ambition, and sycophancy has it in him to be even worse.
At the CIA, he was unable to stay in his lane:
“Mike Pompeo didn’t always seem content playing the traditional role of a C.I.A. director. The former congressman wanted to be close to President Trump after he was confirmed by the Senate, so he moved into a small office on the fourth floor of the Old Executive Office Building, next to the White House, taking over space reserved for the Director of National Intelligence, who had yet to assume his position. One White House official called it a power play. (An intelligence official defended Pompeo, saying he was only making use of space where intelligence officers prepare for the President’s Daily Brief, a standard practice.)”
“Under normal circumstances, Pompeo would have stopped attending the P.D.B. once Dan Coats, Trump’s nominee to serve as D.N.I., was confirmed by the Senate. But the ambitious spymaster managed to stay at Trump’s side throughout his thirteen-month tenure as the C.I.A. director, inflating his role in the process. Under U.S. law, the D.N.I. serves as the President’s principal intelligence adviser and oversees the P.D.B., a summary of the most sensitive intelligence collected by U.S. spy agencies. But at times, Pompeo acted as though he were in charge, repeatedly making the false claim that he personally delivered the P.D.B. to Trump. In reality, one of Coats’s deputies verbally presented the P.D.B. to Trump in the Oval Office. Coats, Pompeo, and as many as ten other top Presidential advisers listened in.”
But no doubt Pompeo was also helped by his obsequious loyalty to the ‘President.’
“Pompeo’s defenders say he didn’t mean to elbow the D.N.I. out of the way. Rather, officials say, Pompeo hit the ground running before Coats could get in place, and then successfully “managed” the President, in contrast to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who Trump fired this week, and other senior national-security officials who were perceived within the White House as disloyal and contemptuous. Being an able politician, Pompeo grabbed the spotlight, increasing his standing in Trump’s mind, they say. Critics inside the Administration accused him of attention-getting and self-aggrandizement.”
“Many C.I.A. officers had mixed feelings about Pompeo’s choices and aggressive style but, as time went by, told me they came to believe that he used his close relationship with Trump to protect the spy agency from Trump’s wrath. (Before he took office, Trump lashed out at the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies for concluding that Russia had intervened in the 2016 election to help him win the White House. Since taking office, Trump has generally been supportive of the C.I.A., in contrast to his open hostility to the F.B.I., which is spearheading the Russia investigation.)”
Sure but he’s hostile to the F.B.I because they’re investigating him. Before he got to office the CIA had been out in front-they initially pushed the FBI to the conclusion that Russia was interfering and to help Donald Trump.
Since Trump has been in the WH Pompeo has changed the CIA’s posture. Maybe Trump likes the CIA better now but is that for the right reasons?
And Pompeo continues to act like a political partisan just like when he was a Congressman:
“By all accounts, Pompeo relished being a spymaster. But he often acted as though the role was too constraining. He wasn’t supposed to weigh in on political or policy matters in White House meetings but did so frequently, often at Trump’s request. At times, Pompeo pitched covert C.I.A. operations to the President without being asked to prepare them, breaking with protocol.”
“In some national-security Cabinet meetings, Pompeo made pronouncements about alleged Iranian misconduct that other officials said weren’t backed up by intelligence-community assessments, according to officials present. “Pompeo couldn’t help himself,” one official said. “He’s a political animal who acts as if he wants to run for President some day.” One of his early battles in the job was over installing new TVs in the director’s office at C.I.A. headquarters, possibly so he could keep up with Fox News and other channels. C.I.A. security officers initially balked at the request, arguing that the wiring could pose an infiltration threat, but Pompeo insisted, according to one official briefed on the exchange.”
He changed it from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to the Fox News intelligence Agency (FNIA).
Many at the CIA are glad to see Pompeo go.
“Pompeo’s hard-charging attitude, and his willingness to take risks and delegate authority, made him especially popular with some officers in the C.I.A.’s Directorate of Operations, known as the D.O., which carries out covert operations. Some undercover operatives had long complained of being micromanaged by what they saw as a risk-averse Obama White House. Other intelligence officials told me they sighed with relief when they learned that Pompeo was leaving the post and that Trump was nominating Gina Haspel, who came up in the Directorate of Operations, as the new director.”
Of course, Gina Haspel has her own issues.
“Some Democratic lawmakers and human-rights groups have criticized Haspel’s role in post-9/11 programs that employed torture against suspected terrorists. Aides said that Democratic senators would aggressively question Haspel during her confirmation hearings about her participation in the programs.”
This, no doubt, was a shameful period in CIA history. However, many at the CIA see her relative to Pompeo has a breath of fresh air-she’s ‘one of us’ unlike Pompeo:’
Inside Langley, however, many officers took solace in Trump choosing a career intelligence officer, who will likely play a more traditional role than Pompeo had. “The program was abhorrent and inconsistent with our values, and I understand that senators facing her nomination will ask a number of tough questions and why a human-rights organization would object,” a former intelligence officer who served in the Obama Administration, and who supports Haspel’s nomination, said. “But I think she is highly qualified, and moreover, I think she would stand up and say no if Trump tries to do this again.”
Whatever her baggage, at least she’s “one of us,” another intelligence officer said.
UPDATE: Regarding Iran war with Iran has been the desire of many in the Russia House and lead by John Bolton-with all Trump’s phony opposition to the Iraq War he now has one of its greatest advocates and ringleaders running his foreign policy and Bolton together with Pompeo are allegedly boxing in and pushing Trump very hard to go to war with Iran-which would be a much worse quagmire than even Iraq was.