NSC is on 3d Trump transition "landing team" in 2 mos. Key jobs unfilled less than a week from start. One insider: Worst transition ever.
— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) January 14, 2017
@dandrezner That's interesting, because the word that keeps coming up in the similar conversations I've had is "clusterfuck."
— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) January 14, 2017
1. Last week strong indicator of how Trump Natsec Team may function: Crazy NSC, feckless State, independent DOD, Leaky Intel Community
— Ilan Goldenberg (@ilangoldenberg) January 15, 2017
It’s not like I trust these particular individuals, but it would be nice if there was someone in the President-Asterisk’s office who knew that electrical outlets were not made for having forks stuck in them. And from what I know of corporate practices (in or out of government), we have to assume that if the top offices are being filled with newbies and know-nothings, then the bureaucratic middle ranks are now divided between nervous people busy shopping around their resumes, and time-servers/incompetents/fellow true believers…
From the company paper in the town whose monopoly industry is national politics, the Washington Post, “‘Never Trump’ national-security Republicans fear they have been blacklisted“:
They are some of the biggest names in the Republican national security firmament, veterans of past GOP administrations who say, if called upon by President-elect Donald Trump, they stand ready to serve their country again.
But their phones aren’t ringing. Their entreaties to Trump Tower in New York have mostly gone unanswered. In Trump world, these establishment all-stars say they are “PNG” — personae non gratae.
Their transgression was signing one or both of two public “Never Trump” letters during the campaign, declaring they would not vote for Trump and calling his candidacy a danger to the nation…
The president-elect has virtually no experience in national security and foreign policy, and his transition team could presumably benefit from the broadest pool of applicants for the influential appointive positions in the State Department, Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security.
But the purportedly blacklisted figures report to their jobs at Washington law firms and think tanks in a state of indefinite limbo as their colleagues, some working in the same offices, are flirting with potential administration jobs.
Last week, the Trump transition held a private briefing for secretary-of-state nominee Rex Tillerson to prepare him for his Senate confirmation hearing. One former Bush national security official who works at a Washington think tank said that some of his younger staff assistants were invited to participate but that he was not. He assumes it was because he signed the letter.
“It’s hostile,” said this person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of further retribution. “It’s not just that we’re frozen out. . . . I was told they said there was an enemies list.”
Among those who signed at least one of the letters are Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff, the first two secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security; two former U.S. trade ambassadors, Carla Hills and Robert Zoellick; two former heads of U.S. intelligence agencies, John Negroponte and retired Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden; a former ambassador to NATO; and several former deputy secretaries of various U.S. government agencies.
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