Today’s WTF? involves the Pentagon. Yesterday Politico reported this:
The White House removed nine members of the Pentagon’s Defense Business Board on Friday and installed people loyal to President Donald Trump in their place, including presidential allies Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie.
Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller installed two close allies of President Trump, Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie, to the Pentagon’s Defense Business Board Friday in an abrupt shake-up of the historically non-partisan advisory group.
Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager, was fired from the 2016 campaign but remained close to the president. Both he and Bossie, the former deputy campaign manager, have been involved in the president’s efforts to discredit the results of the 2020 election.
Miller removed nine members of the board and replaced them with a total of 11 others, including Lewandowski and Bossie.
And the advisory board is what?
The board advises the defense secretary and deputy secretary on business management issues and is historically non-partisan. Members are not paid for their participation and serve no less than one year and no more than four years, according to the Pentagon’s website.
The SecDef, Chris Miller, replaced the previous SecDef in August. Miller is a former Green Beret and defense contractor who somehow got pulled into the Trump Administration. More than that I do not know.
This morning there were reports in several news sources that Miller was blocking the Biden transition team from defense intelligence agencies, but Miller has since strongly denied these reports. There was just some procedural issue that has since been cleared up, he says. Or else the Biden team was being blocked until the blocking got in the news.
But it does make me wonder why Trump is so keen to pack the Pentagon with a bunch of his loyalists, now that we’re near the end of his tenure. Is something being hidden? Have the loyalists been charged with destroying records?
And then there’s this — yesterday Trump ordered nearly all U.S. troops to be pulled from Somalia. Every time he issues sudden withdrawal orders the Pentagon argues with him about it. Maybe he wants people who won’t disagree with him.
Also today: Trump calls Georgia governor to pressure him for help overturning Biden’s win in the state. Kemp said no. Seriously, what else could he say?
Update: This explains some of it. Trump loyalist Kash Patel is blocking some Pentagon officials from cooperating with the transition.
