Кадровый вопрос

[tijd]

В интервью CBS в прошлое воскресенье Фиона Хилл сознательно удержалась от прямой критики Трампа. Но обронила:

Fiona Hill: We're in the middle of a public health crisis. You don't want somebody who's just looking up on Google or Wikipedia, looking up, you know, kind of the coronavirus online. Most of the public health officials are public servants and experts. We need those experts at times of crisis. And so it's deeply disturbing to see people trying to bring them all down for, you know, their own domestic political purposes.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fiona-hill-russia-advisor-president-trump-impeachment-lesley-stahl-60-minutes-2020-03-08/



Слова про "looking up on Google" вероятно относились к Кену Куччинелли, который исполняет обязанности руководителя иммиграционной службы (USCIS) и замминистра национальной безопасности.


The acting deputy secretary of homeland security is asking the internet where to get information about the spread of #Covid19.

We are so borked. pic.twitter.com/hWony9uGG4
- Greg Greene (@ggreeneva) February 24, 2020

В прошлой жизни Куччинелли прославился мракобесной деятельностью на посту генерального прокурора Виргинии.

For nearly a year, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, Virginia’s crusading Republican attorney general, has waged a one-man war on the theory of man-made global warming.
Invoking his subpoena powers, he has sought to force the University of Virginia to turn over the files of a prominent climatology professor, asserting that his research may be marred by fraud. The university is battling the move in the courts.
At the same time, Mr. Cuccinelli is suing the Environmental Protection Agency over its ruling that carbon dioxide and other global warming gases pose a threat to human health and welfare, describing the science behind the agency’s decision as “unreliable, unverifiable and doctored.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/science/earth/23virginia.html

Свое назначение он получил в обход утверждения Сенатом. Федеральный суд нашел это назначение незаконным.

A federal judge ruled that Ken Cuccinelli, who previously headed the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), was unlawfully appointed to run the agency.
D.C. District Judge Randolph Moss, an Obama appointee, decided the Trump administration violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act when Cuccinelli, the current deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), was appointed to lead USCIS in June 2019.
He also ruled that Cuccinelli’s policy that accelerated the screenings for immigrants seeking asylum should be eliminated, according to the ruling obtained by The Hill.
The Federal Vacancies Reform Act regulates who the president can put in certain Cabinet and agency roles. President Trump’s administration created Cuccinelli’s first title, principal deputy director, in order for him to qualify to lead the agency in an interim status.
The judge ruled this title creation did not qualify him for the position.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/ken-cuccinelli-ucis-appointed-illegally-judge



Министерство национальной безопасности, созданное Бушем после 9/11 - одна из крупнейших бюрократических организаций. Имея около 250 тысяч работников, это третье по размеру министерство в федеральном правительстве.

Исполняющий обязанности министра Чад Вольф не отличается компетентностью. На слушаниях в Сенате он не смог дать внятных ответов об опасности коронавируса COVID-19 и утверждал, что смертность от этого вируса такая же, как от обычного гриппа.

DHS Secretary Chad Wolf claims the mortality rate for coronavirus is similar to the flu, both at about 2%. Senator Kennedy says "are you sure of that?" and the secretary doubles down.

The mortality rate for seasonal flu is closer to 0.1%: pic.twitter.com/Fo6nfQrbni
- Matt Novak (@paleofuture) February 25, 2020

Вольф - бывший лоббист. Как и Куччинелли, он был лично отобран Стивеном Миллером за рвение в исполнении политики разделения родителей и детей на южной границе.

As Ms. Nielsen’s chief of staff, Mr. Wolf helped enforce the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy to prosecute families who crossed the border illegally, which led to thousands of children being separated from their parents. Many of those children are still separated from their families.
Mr. Wolf is viewed by Stephen Miller, the White House adviser and the chief architect of the president’s border policies, as someone who can reliably put into effect his immigration agenda, according to administration officials.
Before joining the Department of Homeland Security, Mr. Wolf worked as a lobbyist representing companies aiming to sell products to the Department of Homeland Security.
Mr. Wolf spent several years lobbying to secure funding for the Transportation Security Administration to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a new carry-on luggage screening device. He later was chief of staff for the agency as it was evaluating the product.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/01/us/politics/trump-chad-wolf-dhs.html

Click to view

Среди достижений Вольфа на посту и.о. министра нацбезопасности - лишение жителей штата Нью Йорк доступа к программе Global Entry. О чем он приходил объявлять на программу Такера Карлсона.

The Trump administration is not only making policy announcements through Fox News, as a favored political organ - but it’s making pronouncements about immigration policy on possibly the most bigoted show on that whole network.
https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/trump-administration-uses-tucker-carlsons-show-announce-immigration-retribution



В прошлом году с призывом об оставке Стивена Миллера к Трампу обратилось множество правозащитных организаций, включая ADL, NAACP, SPLC и др.

"Stephen Miller represents white supremacy, violent extremism, and hate - all ideologies that are antithetical to the fundamental values that guide our democracy. Allowing him to remain a White House advisor is a betrayal of our national ideals of justice, inclusion, and fairness. We call on you to halt your own hateful actions and rhetoric and remove all hate enthusiasts from the administration.
Unless and until you fire Stephen Miller - and all who promulgate bigotry - and abandon your administration’s anti-civil rights agenda, you will continue to be responsible for the violence fueled by that hate."
https://civilrights.org/resource/letter-to-the-white-house-civil-rights-groups-call-for-stephen-millers-removal/

А также члены Конгресса еврейской национальности.

As Jewish members of Congress, we are calling on you to immediately relieve White House Senior Advisor Stephen Miller of all government responsibilities and dismiss him from your Administration. His documented support for white nationalist and virulently anti-immigrant tropes is wholly unacceptable and disqualifying for a government employee.
As demonstrated by his recently released emails, Miller frequently disseminated the views of multiple hate groups supportive of white supremacy and other vile ideologies throughout 2016. His distribution of materials fear-mongering about “white genocide” and supporting eugenics-based immigration theories are particularly disturbing given his leadership of your Administration’s immigration policies. With America experiencing historic levels of anti-Semitism, xenophobia, racism, and white supremacy, there should be no place in our government and on any President’s staff for people propagating such views.
https://schneider.house.gov/media/press-releases/schneider-wasserman-schultz-lead-jewish-members-congress-call-dismissal-white

Stephen Miller clearly believes that immigrants of color are a danger to our country & should not be allowed in - a white supremacist idea that’s become the Trump administration’s policy. He has no business in the White House. Add your name if you agree. https://t.co/nPZahfR6KF pic.twitter.com/28oxQq7mh9
- Southern Poverty Law Center (@splcenter) November 12, 2019

Но в качестве спичрайтера Стивен Миллер для Трампа незаменим. Он готовит речи Трампа для телепромтера, включая последнее обращение к нации, которое в своей неряшливости обвалило фондовые рынки.

It was written largely by Stephen Miller, the president’s senior policy adviser, and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, and overseen by staff secretary Derek Lyons. The three men, all White House staffers since Mr. Trump took office, haven’t been deeply involved in the coronavirus response, White House officials said.
Mr. Kushner hasn’t attended a single task force meeting, according to one official who has attended each meeting. Many of the officials who have been working on the issue for weeks said they were cut out or ignored during the speech writing.
The result was a speech that White House officials said hit the correct themes, but was riddled with errors.
But the speech itself caused a divide inside the White House. Mr. Kushner was among those who thought it was important to deliver an address to calm fears and show the administration’s seriousness. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway advised against it, telling colleagues that it was a terrible idea and the message could be conveyed through a videotaped message that the president could release on Twitter.
Mr. Trump signed off on the speech and the latest travel ban during a three-hour meeting in the Oval Office in which his top advisers offered competing viewpoints on the prohibition. Aides described the meeting as sober and calm, and one in which Mr. Trump wanted his team united behind the decision. Vice President Pence, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf were among about a dozen officials in the room.
Still, aides emerged from the meeting unsure if the speech would happen: Mr. Trump had more meetings lined up in the afternoon, including one with bank executives. Those were the types of meetings, aides warned, at which Mr. Trump would sometimes change his mind on previously agreed-upon decisions and upend the White House’s fragile policy process.
The speech was being rewritten up until the time it was fed into the teleprompter, aides said. And there were multiple mistakes. Insurance companies aren’t waiving deductibles for coronavirus treatment, as Mr. Trump read from the remarks. Nor are there exemptions in the new travel ban from Europe for Americans who have undergone health screenings; the ban is on foreign nationals, not Americans. The administration is working on a second parallel policy aimed at screening Americans returning home from abroad.
Mr. Trump then inserted his own costly mistake, according to a review of draft speeches and officials familiar with the process. Instead of saying that the travel ban won’t apply to trade and cargo, Mr. Trump inserted an extra word, saying the prohibitions “will not only apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo.” White House aides who had been part of the task force meetings for the past week, where the EU ban was debated, were furious, and Mr. Trump later had to clean up the mistake via Twitter.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-crisis-tests-trumps-unusual-governing-style-11584060221

Good morning! Overnight, futures fell so far they shut down the futures market https://t.co/Rb2kdIISS5
- Joshua Green (@JoshuaGreen) March 12, 2020

Помимо сочинения речей, Миллер подмял под себя руководство иммиграционными службами и соответственно министерством национальной безопасности, в которое они входят. Нынешний исполняющий обязанности министра сменил министра Нилсен, уволенную не только за недостаточное рвение, но и за попытку бороться с российской атакой на выборы.

Ms. Nielsen left the Department of Homeland Security early this month after a tumultuous 16-month tenure and tensions with the White House. Officials said she had become increasingly concerned about Russia’s continued activity in the United States during and after the 2018 midterm elections - ranging from its search for new techniques to divide Americans using social media, to experiments by hackers, to rerouting internet traffic and infiltrating power grids.
But in a meeting this year, Mick Mulvaney, the White House chief of staff, made it clear that Mr. Trump still equated any public discussion of malign Russian election activity with questions about the legitimacy of his victory. According to one senior administration official, Mr. Mulvaney said it “wasn’t a great subject and should be kept below his level.”
Even though the Department of Homeland Security has primary responsibility for civilian cyberdefense, Ms. Nielsen eventually gave up on her effort to organize a White House meeting of cabinet secretaries to coordinate a strategy to protect next year’s elections.
As a result, the issue did not gain the urgency or widespread attention that a president can command. And it meant that many Americans remain unaware of the latest versions of Russian interference.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/us/politics/russia-2020-election-trump.html



Over the past year and a half, President Trump’s policy adviser and speechwriter Stephen Miller and Kirstjen Nielsen, the now ousted homeland security secretary, were locked in a bitter cold war of backbiting and paranoia.
Trump’s decision to dismiss Nielsen signaled not only that Miller had emerged victorious but also further solidified him as the premier anti-immigration hardliner and survivor in an administration notorious for prolific, rapid turnover at the highest levels.
Before everything came to a head early this week, the president had walked up to the line of sacking Nielsen several times, sometimes cooling off but inevitably getting re-energized by his own resentments, cable-news coverage of the border, and aides and advisers who re-enforced his instincts. Nielsen’s job was temporarily saved last year in part by her willingness to publicly and vociferously defend Trump’s controversial actions, such as deploying U.S. troops to the border late last year.
This was around the same time that Trump had told Fox News that he wanted Nielsen “to be much tougher on the border,” and suggested personnel changes were on the horizon.
But in recent weeks, the president asked Nielsen to bar all migrants, including those legally seeking asylum, from crossing into the United States via the southern border. When Nielsen reminded Trump that doing so would violate federal law, her reasoning only spiked the president’s rage further, according to The New York Times.
A senior White House official characterized this latest disagreement to The Daily Beast as a “last straw.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/kirstjen-nielsens-ouster-strengthens-stephen-millers-grip-on-president-trumps-immigration-policy



В дополнение к некомпетентным клоунам, которые ныне руководят национальной безопасностью, Трамп назначил некомпетентных клоунов руководить национальной разведкой. Должность директора национальной разведки - одна из наиболее ответственных в правительстве и по закону требует назначения эксперта.

There is a Director of National Intelligence who shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. Any individual nominated for appointment as Director of National Intelligence shall have extensive national security expertise.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3023

Ныне исполняющий обязанности директора Ричард Гренелл, по совместительству - посол в Германии, опыта в разведке не имеет, но известен, как тролль-комментатор с анти-иммигрантскими взглядами.

Grenell became one of many Fox News personalities who joined the Trump administration when he was confirmed as ambassador to Germany in 2018.
He is also an avowed fan of the far-right Breitbart news site. “It’s no joke that I’m a Breitbart fan, and I read it every day,” he told them in a 2018 interview. “They ‘got me’ early on, and what I mean by that is Breitbart sees the value of a consistent conservative, and you have a lot of choices in getting your message out. For me, it hasn’t always been perfectly positive coverage, and sometimes they report on things I don’t feel comfortable with, but that is the beauty of it. I love the courageousness of it. I hope I’m just as courageous.”
https://www.mediamatters.org/richard-grenell/another-former-fox-news-employee-has-cabinet-level-position-here-are-some-things

I did Nazi it coming.
- Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) June 3, 2018

Он также известен работой на мутных клиентов в Восточной Европе, в частности (по наводке Артура Финкельштейна) на молдавского олигарха Владимира Плахотнюка.

President Donald Trump’s new acting intelligence director, Richard Grenell, used to do consulting work on behalf of an Eastern European oligarch who is now a fugitive and was recently barred from entering the U.S. under anti-corruption sanctions imposed last month by the State Department.
In 2016, Grenell wrote several articles defending the oligarch, a Moldovan politician named Vladimir Plahotniuc, but did not disclose that he was being paid, according to records and interviews. Grenell also did not register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which generally requires people to disclose work in the U.S. on behalf of foreign politicians. <...>
Grenell does not have prior experience in intelligence. He was the U.S. spokesman at the United Nations during the George W. Bush administration.
In between his turns in government, Grenell had a public affairs consulting firm called Capitol Media Partners. One of the firm’s clients, according to the financial disclosure that Grenell filed when he became an ambassador, was Arthur J. Finkelstein, the late Republican political consultant whose international clients included Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary. Grenell’s financial disclosure indicates that he received more than $5,000 from Finkelstein’s firm but does not specify how much.
According to a person familiar with the relationship, Grenell worked for Finkelstein as a media consultant for clients in Eastern Europe. That person and another individual said the client in Moldova was Plahotniuc, the country’s richest man and then a top official in its ruling political party.
In August 2016, Grenell published op-eds in the right-leaning Washington Examiner and Washington Times defending Plahotniuc and attacking his enemies as serving Russian interests. Plahotniuc and his allies at the time were fending off suspicions of their involvement in a $1 billion bank fraud in Moldova.
https://www.propublica.org/article/trumps-new-spy-chief-used-to-work-for-a-foreign-politician-the-us-accused-of-corruption

Криминальные связи Плахотнюка простираются до Солнцевской ОПГ и Семена Могилевича.

In the summer of 2016, Plahotniuc’s charmed life as his country’s “most feared tycoon” (in the words of the New York Times, which termed him “Moldova’s most-feared figure, a nominally pro-Western tycoon with a reputation so toxic that even his political friends usually try to keep their distance in public”) hit a rough patch when Mihail Gofman, the country’s anti-corruption czar, went public. Seeking safety in America, Gofman explained to the FBI how Plahotniuc oversaw the theft of $1 billion from Moldova’s state treasury-one-eighth of the country’s annual GDP-then laundered it with Kremlin help. Gofman’s fears for his future were well founded. When Moldova’s former Prime Minister Vlad Filat, a sincere Kremlin opponent, denounced Plahotniuc for his role in the billion-dollar-theft, he was arrested and sentenced to nine years in prison, reputedly on Plahotniuc’s orders.
Gofman’s account, which confirmed what many Western intelligence agencies suspected, exploded Plahotniuc’s carefully crafted myth of being “pro-Western” as head of the Democratic Party of Moldova, which manages to control the country’s politics, despite never getting even one-fifth of the votes in any election. In fact, Plahotniuc-termed “Moldova’s Donald Trump”-is deeply in bed with Russian organized crime, specifically the notorious Solntsevo Brotherhood led by Semyon Mogilevich, according to INTERPOL.
https://observer.com/2018/05/why-did-ambassador-to-germany-ric-grenell-defend-vladimir-plahotniuc/

We’re pleased to be hosting U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell in Kyiv! During a meeting with @NaftogazUkraine Integrated Gas Business Head Andrew Favorov, Ambassador Grenell underscored U.S. opposition to #NordStream2 and U.S. support for Ukraine’s energy independence. pic.twitter.com/fctMot5K0U
- U.S. Embassy Kyiv (@USEmbassyKyiv) September 20, 2019

Среди других знакомств Гренелла - сподручный Могилевича Дмитрий Фирташ и его адвокаты.

After the meeting, two of Giuliani’s allies did join Firtash’s legal team. Toensing and diGenova began representing him in the summer of 2019, and Parnas told Maddow that they worked to score political gifts for Trump from the gas magnate. Parnas said they also tried to leverage their Trumpworld connections to help Firtash.
“During the situation that was going on with the Firtash case, Victoria called Ric Grenell because he was the ambassador to Germany and Vienna was in the same orbit there,” Parnas said. “She basically asked him, if he sees any pressure coming from DOJ to extradite Firtash, if he could let us know. She told me he said he would.” Parnas said he didn’t know if Grenell ever shared information regarding Firtash with Toensing.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/lev-parnas-dishes-on-kushner-maduro-and-soros



Своим помощником в руководстве национальной разведки Гренелл нанял печально известного Кашьяпа Патела, бывшего сотрудника Девина Нунеса и рьяного борца с Рашагейтом. Вместе они взялись проводить чистку против профессионалов.

Joseph Maguire, the former acting director of national intelligence, and his deputy, Andrew P. Hallman, resigned on Friday. Mr. Grenell told Mr. Hallman, popular in the office’s Liberty Crossing headquarters, that his service was no longer needed, according to two officials. Mr. Hallman, who has worked in the office or at the C.I.A. for three decades, expressed confidence in his colleagues in a statement but also referred to the “uncertainties that come with change.”
The ouster of Mr. Hallman and exit of Mr. Maguire, who also oversaw the National Counterterrorism Center, allowed Mr. Grenell to install his own leadership team.
One of his first hires was Kashyap Patel, a senior National Security Council staff member and former key aide to Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California and the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Mr. Patel will have a mandate to “clean house,” CBS News reported, citing a person close to the matter.
Mr. Patel was best known as the lead author of a politically charged memo two years ago that accused F.B.I. and Justice Department leaders of abusing their surveillance powers to spy on a former Trump campaign adviser. The memo was widely criticized as misleading, though an inspector general later found other problems with aspects of the surveillance.
Working with Mr. Nunes, Mr. Patel began what they called Objective Medusa to examine the F.B.I.’s investigation into whether anyone associated with the Trump campaign conspired with Russia’s election interference in 2016.
“I hired him to bust doors down,” Mr. Nunes told the author Lee Smith for his book “The Plot Against the President,” which chronicles Mr. Patel’s investigations on behalf of the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee. Mr. Patel was interviewed extensively in the book, which claims without proof that journalists, diplomats, law enforcement and intelligence officials engaged in a vast plot to undermine Mr. Trump’s campaign and then bring him down as president.
As acting director of national intelligence, Mr. Grenell has access to any secrets he may want to review. And he has requested access to information from the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies, according to two people familiar with the matter.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/us/politics/richard-grenell-dni.html

4 internal studies in the past 2 years have said the DNI needs to be reformed. No one has done it. @RichardGrenell is now starting to do it. https://t.co/9BazOweALJ
- Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) March 12, 2020

Вред от этой деятельности трудно переоценить. Ежегодный доклад национальной разведки об угрозах национальной безопасности в прошлом году указывал на опасность пандемии.

"We assess that the United States and the world will remain vulnerable to the next flu pandemic or large-scale outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive rates of death and disability, severely affect the world economy, strain international resources, and increase calls on the United States for support. Although the international community has made tenuous improvements to global health security, these gains may be inadequate to address the challenge of what we anticipate will be more frequent outbreaks of infectious diseases because of rapid unplanned urbanization, prolonged humanitarian crises, human incursion into previously unsettled land, expansion of international travel and trade, and regional climate change."
https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/2019-ATA-SFR---SSCI.pdf



Эту часть доклада Трамп мог пропустить, но ему не понравилась другая часть доклада. В выступлении директора национальной разведки Коутса говорилось

"Russia’s approach relies on misdirection and obfuscation as it seeks to destabilize and diminish our standing in the world.
- Even as Russia faces a weakening economy, the Kremlin is stepping up its campaign to divide Western political and security institutions and undermine the post-WWII international order.
- We expect Russia will continue to wage its information war against democracies and to use social media to attempt to divide our societies.
- Russia’s attack against Ukrainian naval vessels in November is just the latest example of the Kremlin’s willingness to violate international norms to coerce its neighbors and accomplish its goals. We also expect Russia will use cyber techniques to influence Ukraine’s upcoming Presidential election.
- The Kremlin has aligned Russia with repressive regimes in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and Venezuela, and Moscow’s relationship with Beijing is closer than it has been in many decades.
- The Kremlin is also stepping up its engagement in the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia, using weapons sales, private security firms, and energy deals to advance its global influence."
https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/congressional-testimonies/item/1949-dni-coats-opening-statement-on-the-2019-worldwide-threat-assessment-of-the-us-intelligence-community

В этом году публичного доклада об угрозах национальной безопасности не состоялось. Говорят, что в подготовленном, но не опубликованном докладе, речь также шла об опасности пандемий и плохой готовности к ним.

On Friday afternoon at 5 p.m., the U.S. intelligence community officially gave Congress and the American public the stiff-arm. Its leaders are refusing to appear in a public session in front of the House Intelligence Committee to discuss the threats facing the nation, as they have done annually. The intelligence chiefs reportedly are concerned that President Trump will lash out - as he has before - if the public-facing Worldwide Threat Assessment’s conclusions differ from what he says or thinks. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), the committee chairman, invited them to testify Wednesday, but now even a closed-door hearing remains unscheduled.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/02/12/intelligence-leaders-are-afraid-trump-we-still-need-hear-them/

In annual intelligence report that has been postponed without explanation by President Donald Trump’s administration warns that the U.S. remains unprepared for a global pandemic, two senior government officials who have reviewed a draft of the report tell TIME.
The office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) was scheduled to deliver the Worldwide Threat Assessment to the House Intelligence Committee on Feb. 12 and the hearing has not been rescheduled, according to staffers and members of the House and Senate intelligence committees. The DNI’s office declined requests for a comment on the status of the report. Democratic staffers say they do not expect the report to be released any time soon.
The final draft of the report remains classified but the two officials who have read it say it contains warnings similar to those in the last installment, which was published on January 29, 2019.
https://time.com/5799765/intelligence-report-pandemic-dangers/



На закрытый брифинг об угрозах для безопасности выборов Гренелл не явился, пренебрегая своими служебными обязанностями. Участники брифинга попытались отмотать назад сообщения о том, что Кремль вновь намерен помогать избранию Трампа.

The briefing appeared to be an attempt by the intelligence officials to soften their message in the wake of a session last month in which the intelligence community’s point person on foreign election threats, Shelby Pierson, informed House Intelligence Committee members that Russia had “developed a preference” for Trump in 2020.
Pierson did not say that Russia had taken steps based on that preference to intervene on behalf of Trump, an intelligence official said. But that nuance apparently did not mollify Trump, who when informed of her briefing, grew angry and suspicious that Democrats might try to leak that assessment to undermine his bid for reelection.
Soon after, Trump replaced his then-acting director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire, whom he apparently blamed for Pierson’s briefing, with Richard Grenell, a Trump loyalist and the U.S. Ambassador to Germany.
On Tuesday, senators also were disconcerted that Grenell, as the head of the intelligence community, was not present, said one of the people briefed on the session. The heads of other agencies, including acting homeland security secretary Chad Wolf, were there, and Grenell had been scheduled to appear, according to a list of participants circulated to lawmakers on Monday.
But Grenell declined to go to the Hill, citing apprehension about his preparedness to address sensitive subjects that tend to upset the president, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Trump dismisses intelligence official’s assessment of Russian preference for him as Democratic ‘hoax’
He asked Trump to be excused from the briefings because he anticipated pointed questions from Democrats about politically volatile subjects - such as intelligence assessments that Russia is once more interfering in U.S. politics, two people familiar with the matter said. They, too, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions.
Maura Beard, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), said in a statement that the agency never told Congress that Grenell would participate in the briefing. She said so despite the list circulated to lawmakers Monday showing that he was scheduled.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/richard-grenell-trump-intelligence-election-security/2020/03/10/6504cc36-62d6-11ea-acca-80c22bbee96f_story.html



На пост постоянного директора национальной разведки Трамп выдвинул конгрессмена из Техаса Джона Ратклиффа, который был одним из "цепных псов"в борьбе с Рашагейтом и импичментом. Ни малейшей компетентности для этой работы у него нет, и предыдущую попытку пришлось отозвать из-за лжи, обнаруженной в приукрашенном резюме.

“The sum total of his qualifications appears to be his record of promoting Donald Trump's conspiracy theories about the investigation into Russian interference and calling for prosecution of Trump's political enemies.”
https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-statement-on-the-nomination-of-rep-john-ratcliffe-as-director-of-national-intelligence

“That John Ratcliffe was even nominated speaks to the deep disregard for America’s national security at the core of this rotten administration. Given the widespread opposition to Ratcliffe’s nomination, Donald Trump had little choice but to seek a new nominee.”
https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-statement-on-trump-withdrawing-his-nomination-of-john-ratcliffe-for-director-of-national-intelligence

Повторной попыткой назначить своего цепного пса руководителем разведки Трамп загонят сенаторов в вилку - либо они утверждают неквалифицированного Ратклиффа, либо оставляют на посту неквалифицированного Гренелла. В любом случае продолжается неравная борьба с американской разведкой и ее способностью докладывать нелицеприятную правду.

This whole episode is such a middle finger to the Senate, which certainly wouldn't confirm Grenell and didn't want to confirm Ratcliffe-but is going to be stuck with one of 'em thanks to its own fecklessness.

Once again, the separation of parties trumps the separation of powers. https://t.co/TsDY3hmJDm
- Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) February 29, 2020