Впереди паровоза

[tijd]

Трамп сильно отстаёт от своих предшественников в наборе кадров в администрацию. На большинство позиций, которые требует утверждения в Сенате, включая ключевые должности в Госдепе и Пентагоне, до сих пор никто не номинирован.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-administration-appointee-tracker/database/

Часть проблемы - причудливые требования к лояльности.

“In the vetting process there is a lot of scrutiny of social media accounts, Twitter . . . any hint of something negative about Trump as a candidate can be disqualifying, and a lot of people haven’t made it through that filter,” said Christine Wormuth, who served as the Pentagon’s top policy official from 2014 to 2016, under former President Barack Obama’s administration.
The investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russian officials is also scaring off people who had been on the fence about joining the administration.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article154052384.html



Но у некоторых работников администрации с лояльностью нет проблем. Кевин Харрингтон был нанят в команду Майкла Флинна (на должность Deputy Assistant to the President for Strategic Planning), как протеже миллиардера Питера Тиля. Daily Beast сообщает, что в марте, через месяц после отставки Флинна, Харрингтон невзначай интересовался у Госдепа, нельзя ли в одностороннем порядке снять санкции с России.

“He asked us to ‘determine whether U.S. national interests were being harmed by sanctions on Russian oil, which were bad for the world economy and therefore bad for the U.S. economy,’” according to the former U.S. official.
A second former U.S. official confirmed that Harrington “was very aggressively pushing this out of the gate,” from the time he was brought to the White House by Flynn.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/white-house-pushed-to-drop-russia-sanctionseven-after-firing-michael-flynn

Сам Харрингтон достаточно откровенно рассказывал о своей деятельности по снятию санкций в февральском интервью:

“I think the President is looking at this somewhat realistically and saying, ‘Russia is a very large country with 7,000 nuclear weapons, give or take, and 11 million barrels a day of oil production. Do you really want to be herding them to a really close relationship with China or is there a way to make this more constructive?’” he said on the sidelines of a Foundation for Defense of Democracy event in Washington, D.C.
Harrington also said that a change in the sanctions policy was neither imminent nor out of the question.
“I don’t say that there will never, ever be a change in the future. These things are always changing,” he said. “It’s not an exotic thing to be looking at if there is some way to change the relationship.”
http://www.defenseone.com/politics/2017/02/will-trump-repeal-sanctions-russia-conversation-nsc-planner/135356/



Во время визита в Новую Зеландию откровенность снизошла и на Рекса Тиллерсона. Он сказал, что Трамп поручил ему улучшить отношения с Россией, не оглядываясь на то, как на это реагируют другие.

Tillerson said Trump told him to try to improve ties with Russia regardless of the U.S. political backdrop.
"I can't really comment on any of that because I don't have any direct knowledge," Tillerson told a news conference in Wellington, when asked how worried he was that the U.S. political crisis could take down the Trump administration.
"The president's been clear to me: do not let what's happened over here in the political realm prevent you from the work that you need to do on this relationship and he's been quite clear with me... that we might make progress. I'm really not involved in any of these other issues," he said after a meeting with New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-newzealand-usa-idUSKBN18X0H2