senior DHS official tells @NBCNews that career professionals at State/DHS had no input on directives. now scrambling to interpret/implement
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) January 28, 2017
senior Justice official tells @NBCNews that Dept had no input. not sure who in WH is writing/reviewing. standard NSC process not functioning
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) January 28, 2017
I’ve written here several times that the US government is all about process. We have a process for doing everything. One of those things is called the Interagency Process. The Interagency Process can be defined as:
The National Security Council is responsible for the integration of domestic, foreign, and military interests around the globe, and it is the overseer of the interagency process. It is the president’s principal forum for considering and coordinating national security and foreign policy matters among various government agencies.
It is supposed to be overseen and administered by the National Security Council. What John Harwood is reporting in those tweets, and what former Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Juliette Kayyem is referring to here in response to Josh Barro:
Yes. That is why interagency review is needed. Operationally, they should have been given border manual guidance. None issued. https://t.co/L80bnzCTDM
— Juliette Kayyem (@juliettekayyem) January 28, 2017
Reminder: before EO, no guidance was sent to border officials or to airport/airline personnel. DHS scrambling now to put one together.
— Juliette Kayyem (@juliettekayyem) January 28, 2017
What we have here is either a complete breakdown of the Interagency Process or a complete ignoring of it. My guess is its the latter leading to the former. It has been reported that the Executive Orders are being written by Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller. Neither of them have any experience with the Interagency Process. Moreover, it has been reported that the National Security Council staff is itself not fully staffed in terms of the political appointees and the people that have been brought on board have little to no experience with the Interagency Process. While LTG (ret) Flynn does, as the former DIA Director, it is unclear from his biography if his Chief of Staff LTG (ret) Kellogg does. Additionally, we have no Secretary of State and we have temporary beachhead teams running things at State, as well as at DHS where we at least have a Secretary, and at other related agencies and departments.
The process has either been ignored, purposely or through sheer ignorance, or its been willfully broken. When that happens you get this type of chaos where US personnel that have to carry out orders aren’t even sure what the orders are. Remember, the Customs agents at the airports and the Border Patrol and Immigration agents at entry points – airports, seaports, and along both the US-Canadian and US-Mexican borders, are not lawyers. And while there are lawyers working for these agencies and departments, if they can’t get answers and clear guidance from higher, they can’t effectively interpret for the personnel on the ground that have to do the actual job. The reason we have a process is to prevent this type of mess. To ensure that every agency or department effected by an Executive Order, change in legislation, regulation, and/or policy has a chance to consider it, weigh in on it, and so that once the change happens everyone has clear guidance and can move out sharply. Aside from the damage to the US’s reputation, the fact that ISIL is already using this as a recruiting tool, this breakdown doesn’t inspire confidence in how the new Administration will respond when there’s a real crisis (that they haven’t created themselves). Finally, there draft that is circulating about how the Trump Administration will actually organize the Interagency is less than reassuring. A decision seems to have been made, and I suspect it was made by LTG (ret) Flynn, that neither the Director of National Intelligence nor the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are to be members of the Principals Committee on the National Security Council. This is a recipe for disaster.
DNI and Chairman of Joint Chiefs no longer automatic NSC Principals Committee members pic.twitter.com/AbaGVmiWFw
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) January 28, 2017
When the Process Is Ignored We Get ChaosPost + Comments (87)