The security clearance of any officer or employee of the federal government who has exercised extreme carelessness in the handling of classified information shall be revoked.” — Senate Bill 3135, co-sponsored last year (to shame Hillary Clinton) by 16 Republican senators: Cory Gardner, John Cornyn, Shelley Moore Capito, Tim Scott, James Risch, Pat Roberts, Dean Heller, Kelly Ayotte, John Barrasso, David Perdue, Johnny Isakson, Thom Tillis, John Thune, David Vitter, Mike Rounds and James Inhofe
“Those who mishandled classified info have had their sec clearances revoked, lost their jobs, faced fines, & even been sent to prison.”
— Reince Priebus, tweet, July 6, 2016
Trump’s presidency hinges on this choice
On one point above all, they were unanimous: The president cannot govern effectively, they said, without a chief of staff empowered to execute his agenda.
.. the president cannot govern effectively without a chief of staff who is first among equals. The chief wears many hats. But he is above all the person the president counts on to turn his policies into reality and, when necessary, to tell him what he does not want to hear.
.. Since the days of Richard Nixon and H.R. Haldeman, every president has learned, often the hard way, that he cannot govern effectively without empowering a chief of staff as his gatekeeper. Nixon’s successor, Gerald Ford, tried to run the White House according to a model he called the “spokes of the wheel” — with a handful of advisers reporting directly to him, at the center. The result was chaos
.. Carter, horrified by the Watergate scandal personified by Haldeman, chose not to appoint a chief at all; but 2½ years into his term, unable to prioritize his agenda and bogged down in minutia, he realized his mistake and named Hamilton Jordan.
.. Panetta set the stage for Clinton’s reelection. He did it by telling Clinton hard truths.
.. Pitting advisers against one another may work in a family real estate empire, but modern history shows that it is a formula for failure in the presidency. Like Trump, Ronald Reagan wanted to shake up the establishment, but he intuited something Trump has yet to grasp: As a Washington outsider, he needed a consummate insider to get things done.
He found that person in James A. Baker III, a smooth-as-silk 50-year-old Texas lawyer. Baker knew what was doable on Capitol Hill and was not afraid to tell the president what he did not want to hear.
.. No competent chief would allow an executive order on immigration (a core Trump campaign promise) to be dispatched without vetting it with the departments involved.
It’s also hard to imagine Baker or Panetta allowing a president to squander his political capital on an ill-fated health-care bill with almost no chance of passing the Senate.
.. Priebus’s greatest failure has been his unwillingness to confront the president with the painful truth.
.. He cannot succeed as president if he is surrounded by sycophants.
.. Trump can continue to try to govern by himself — his gut instincts unchecked, his advisers warring, his executive orders mired in the courts and legislation dead on Capitol Hill. Or he can empower a chief of staff to take charge
Trump Uses and Betrays His Collaborators
Spicer was determinedly dour and looked miserable. He was puffy, pinched and pale. And little wonder: Trump has sucked the lifeblood out of him.
.. Washington is abuzz with speculation about when Spicer will be shown the door, but it doesn’t really matter. His credibility, and his dignity, have already been defenestrated.
.. Trump has a long history of walking out of disasters unscathed. It’s those around him — the Spicers of the world — who are destroyed.
- Trump entities filed for bankruptcy protection six times. Investors, lenders and workers took hits — and Trump moved on.
- Trump was caught on tape boasting to Billy Bush about sexually assaulting women — and Billy Bush lost his job.
- Corey Lewandowski and
- Paul Manafort poured themselves into Trump’s campaign and were unceremoniously dumped.
- Michael Flynn is out and potentially in legal trouble.
- The FBI’s Comey arguably handed Trump the election — and learned of his dismissal from TV.
- Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein tarnished his sterling reputation in just two weeks.
- Vice President Pence has been “unflagging in his loyalty,” only to be made “the public face of official narratives that turn out to be misleading or false.”
- Trump humiliated Steve Bannon by publicly downplaying their association.
- Trump repaid House Speaker Paul Ryan’s loyalty by winking at calls for Ryan’s ouster.
- Attempts to defend Trump by aides Reince Priebus and Kellyanne Conway and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have left them sounding clownish.
.. avoided answering questions by saying no fewer than 22 times how very “clear” he or Trump had been about this or that.
.. And, as many a Trump loyalist has discovered, you are useful to Trump until you are not — and then you are cast aside.
Video: Why a Staff ‘Shake-up’ Poses Challenges for President Trump
There are Three Pillars of Political Thought in the white house:
- Economic nationalists: Steve Bannon, Stephenen Miller, Peter Navarro
- Moderate Globalists: Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Gary Cohn, Dina Powell
- Establishment Republicans: Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer