8chan/8kun QResearch Posts (1)
#11624213 at 2020-11-13 11:23:31 (UTC+1)
Q Research General #14841: Ezra Cohen-Watnick Is A Keystone Edition
After firings and turnover, national security community wonders: what's next?
By: Aaron Mehta and Joe Gould ? 11 hours ago
WASHINGTON - The unprecedented removal of top Pentagon officials during a presidential transition has left the national security community reeling, wondering who will be the next to go and struggling to understand why it is happening at all.
Among the theories discussed by national security experts and concerned Democrats alike: that the firings are a play to accelerate the removal of troops in Afghanistan or, more skeptically, to use the military to subvert the election results.
A third option, however, is also floating among Washington circles: that the exits of Defense Secretary Mark Esper and several other key officials stem from personal politics that have been commonplace during the Trump administration.
An administration official, who asked not to be named because of the political sensitivities, attributed the overhaul to John McEntee, the director of the Presidential Personnel Office, who has reportedly been working for months to quash perceived disloyalty within the administration. A Washington Post columnist tweeted McEntee is also behind exits at the Department of Homeland Security.
"All the churn really isn't about policy," the official said, adding that National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien has been left out of the decision making. "It's about getting revenge on the people they consider 'never Trump.'"
Trump's Monday firing of Esper, replacing him with Christopher Miller, the head of the National Counterterrorism Center, was already extraordinary for a transition period, and made more unusual because the job did not go to Deputy Secretary David Norquist. (For now, Norquist remains on the job.)
But the situation escalated Tuesday, when Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Joseph Kernan and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy James Anderson submitted their resignations, in moves that were reportedly directed by White House staff. Esper's chief of staff, Jen Stewart, was also pushed out.
- Ezra Cohen-Watnick, who entered the Trump administration with National Security Adviser Mike Flynn, replaced Kernan in an acting capacity.
- Anthony Tata, a retired Army brigadier general and Fox News guest who was placed in the Pentagon amid controversy over his inflammatory remarks, will be performing the duties held by Anderson.
- Kash Patel, a former National Security Council official who rose to prominence by helping House Republicans during the investigation into ties between Trump and Russia, has been named Miller's chief of staff.
Patel is "running the show," and Cohen-Watnick is "very influential over there now," the administration source said.
While speculation swirls about who is next - reports have named acquisition head Ellen Lord, the longest-serving political appointee at the department, as well as Chief Management Officer Lisa Hershman - other moves with less prominent leaders are also taking place.
These include:
- Charles D. Cowan, a Trump appointee at Housing and Urban Development, arrived on Monday as the new deputy chief management officer, Defense News has learned.
- Alexis Ross, a deputy chief of staff for Esper, was also let go with Stewart. However, Ross may end up staying in the Pentagon in another role.
- Mark Tomb, Anderson's deputy chief of staff, was also let go Wednesday, according to Foreign Policy.
- And retired Col. Douglas Macgregor, a major proponent of Afghanistan withdrawal, has been placed as an adviser to Miller.
Lead Democrats on the congressional defense committees have been critical of the moves, citing a risk to national security and claiming the changes project chaos and instability to adversaries around the world at a time when the United States should project calm and order.
"If this is the beginning of a trend - the president either firing or forcing out national security professionals in order to replace them with people perceived as more loyal to him - then the next 70 days will be precarious at best and downright dangerous at worst," Rep. Adam Smith, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said in a statement Tuesday. He added that Trump's "singular obsession with loyalty has severely undermined the competence of our government and made us less safe."
On Thursday evening, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., told a Fox News reporter that the administration had indicated the personnel changes at the Pentagon have finished.
MORE
https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2020/11/12/after-firings-and-turnover-national-security-community-wonders-whats-next/