This is a daily or weekly record of the Trump presidency so hopefully future generations will learn what happens when you elect an narcissistic, thin skinned, racist, xenophobic, misogynistic unqualified buffoon in a position of power where he has access to nuclear codes.
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Thursday, March 15, 2018
March 13th, 2017. It's been 486 days since the Nov 8, 2016, election of some rich asshole, no. 45, and 414 days since the Jan 20th inauguration of some rich asshole.
BY BRENT BUDOWSKY, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 03/13/18 11:15 AM EDT
In a partisan and shameful draft report, House Intelligence Committee Republicans are seeking to discredit and debunk the work of American law enforcement and the U.S. intelligence community.
Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee are now leading participants in one of the great coverups in American history.
They are acting in contempt of guardians of American security, the bipartisan tradition of congressional intelligence committees and the opinion of the American people who want these crimes thoroughly investigated without the stench and slime of partisan politics.
It is the united view of American law enforcement and intelligence community leaders that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin attacked America in the 2016 presidential election with the hope of undermining the electoral process.
There must have been celebrations in the Kremlin when House Intelligence Committee Republicans essentially said that Russian operatives are right, and the American intelligence and law enforcement leaders are wrong.
It is the united view of American law enforcement and intelligence leaders that Russian operatives, some of whom are already indicted and with other indictments likely coming soon, continue to launch multi-faceted attacks against America that may, or may not, have been done in collusion with individuals tied to the rich asshole.
The issue of whether there was collusion, or more accurately a criminal conspiracy involving some Americans working with the Russians, is currently under active investigation.
By contrast, the House Intelligence Committee Republicans amazingly suggest that their congressional investigation should be ended early and that the united leaders of the American law enforcement and intelligence communities are all wrong because, these Republicans falsely claim, the absence of collusion or conspiracy has already been proven.
It was stunning that on the day the United Kingdom pointed the finger at Russia for a murder on British soil, the House Intelligence Committee Republicans drafted a dishonest report aiming to discredit the American law enforcement and intelligence community work defending America from the Russian attack against us.
It takes incredible gall for House Intelligence Committee Republicans to assert that the Russian attack against America in 2016 should no longer be investigated by the Congress.
In the end, the epic failure of House Intelligence Committee Republicans matters a great deal to the political future of Republicans but does not matter to the investigation. While the House Intelligence Committee was widely discredited long ago, Robert Mueller marches on with his focused investigation of the Russia scandal.
Mueller marches on, achieving a growing number of indictments of Russians and Americans as complicit in crimes. He marches on, achieving a growing number of plea bargains with Americans who are detailing the dirt to the Feds, to be used at trial in coming criminal prosecutions.
Mueller marches on, interviewing witnesses at length, who will be indicted if they do not tell the truth when they are questioned by investigators.
Mueller marches on in the pursuit of justice and the defense of America against the Russian attack, despite the danger of his being fired in a Saturday Night Massacre or suspected criminals being pardoned by a president in fear of the facts, the truth and the law.
The Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee are now leading participants in one of the great coverups in American history, while Robert Mueller, a decorated Marine and lifetime Republican, marches on in his battle for truth, justice and the American way.
Brent Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and former Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.), who was chief deputy majority whip of the U.S. House of Representatives. He holds an LLM in international financial law from the London School of Economics.
During an interview on Tuesday’s edition of Fox & Friends, House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) justified the decision made by Republicans on the committee to end its probe into the rich asshole campaign for possible collusion with Russia with a rich asshole talking point that was debunked eight months ago.
“If you look at the one example of which was I think bad judgement which is where they met with a Russian lawyer, but it had to do with Russian adoptions,” Nunes said, after he was asked to explain how the House Intelligence Committee arrived at its conclusion that there was no collusion.
Nunes was referring to a June 2016 the rich asshole Tower between the rich asshole’s top campaign aides and a Kremlin-connected lawyer who promised to give them dirt on Hillary Clinton. When the New York Times broke news of the meeting last summer, some rich asshole Jr. released a statement claiming they “primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government.”
the rich asshole Jr. eventually released the email correspondence that set up the meeting, and the word “adoption” does not appear a single time. Instead, the Russia-connected publicist who helped set up the meeting wrote to the president’s eldest son and said, “The crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the rich asshole campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father… This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for some rich asshole.”
Within 20 minutes of Goldstone sending his email, the rich asshole Jr. wrote back and said, “Thanks Rob I appreciate that… if it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”
After invoking the debunked the rich asshole talking point, Nunes dismissed critics who argue he shouldn’t have had anything to do with the intelligence committee’s investigation into the rich asshole campaign, since he worked hand-in-hand with the White House last year to politicize intelligence in an effort to validate the rich asshole’s baseless accusation that Obama wiretapped him.
On the heels of panicked House Republicans’ fraudulent Russia report, some rich asshole Jr. rolled out the most absurd defense of collusion yet.
the rich asshole’s Republican stooges have issued a declaration of “no collusion,” but on Tuesday morning Don Jr. flailed defending the actual collusion he personally engaged in. Asked by “Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade if he wished he had disclosed the June 2016 the rich asshole Tower meeting, the rich asshole rattled off a litany of familiar excuses and one new one.
“It was the biggest waste of time of my life,” the rich asshole Jr. said of the meeting.
“When you are on a campaign trail like that, there’s so much going on. Like, I didn’t even think about it. By the way, and they talk about me not disclosing. I’m not in government. I had no obligation to disclose it.
“I took a meeting from someone that we had done business with years before. I said okay, fine, I’ll listen to you,” he added. “I thought that was pretty much covered under the First Amendment. So I listened.”
the rich asshole’s own emails contradict his claims about the meeting, demonstrating a high level of planning and an intent to conspire with people who were being explicitly identified as agents of a hostile foreign government. Even the rich asshole ally Steve Bannon pointed out that Don Jr. had a duty to disclose the meeting to the FBI.
But the notion that the First Amendment covers an explicit attempt to conspire with America’s enemies is perhaps the most absurd and ignorant defense that any the rich asshole figure has given to date.
It also reveals that Don Jr. is all too aware of the fact that the House Republicans can run interference for the rich asshole’s Fox News fan base, but they can’t stop special counsel Robert Mueller.
A longtime personal assistant to President some rich asshole was reportedly fired and escorted out of the White House on Monday, with one report claiming the ouster was due to a criminal investigation.
John McEntee was unceremoniously removed from his position because the Department of Homeland Security is investigating him for “serious financial crimes,” CNN reported, citing an unidentified source familiar with his termination. The alleged crimes are said to not be related to the rich asshole.
The Wall Street Journal, which was the first to break the news of McEntee’s ouster, reported that he was removed because of an “unspecified security issue,” citing an unidentified White House official.
McEntee wasn’t allowed to collect his belongings ― including his jacket ― before being escorted out, according to the Journal.
The DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
CHIP SOMODEVILLA VIA GETTY IMAGES
White House Personal Aide to the President John McEntee, left, is seen with White House Director of Social Media Dan Scavino in November.
McEntee previously served as an aide to the rich asshole during his 2016 presidential campaign, and the rich asshole campaign announced Tuesday that he will rejoin the organization as a senior adviser for campaign operations. He’ll work alongside Katrina Pierson, who served as the 2016 campaign’s national spokesperson and will now oversee the campaign’s national grassroots outreach.
If there was any issue with McEntee inside the White House, the rich asshole’s campaign hasn’t acknowledged it.
“As we build out our operations for the 2018 mid-term elections and the 2020 reelection campaign, we are pleased to welcome back two outstanding members of our 2016 team,” Brad Parscale, the rich asshole for President campaign manager, said in a statement. “We need the help of proven leaders such as Katrina and John to promote the President’s growing portfolio of achievements across the country.”
John McEntee on Monday was escorted out of the White House, according to two senior administration officials.
He was escorted from the White House because of an "unspecified security issue," the Journal reported, citing a third White House official.
The rich asshole campaign announced on Tuesday that McEntee is rejoining the campaign as a senior adviser.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told the Journal that "we don't comment on personnel issues."
According to the Journal, it is not clear why McEntee was fired.
“It’s not going to be great for morale,” one White House official said about his leaving.
McEntee has been working with the rich asshole since the early days of his presidential campaign.
In his role in the White House, McEntee did tasks such as giving the president messages and making sure the clocks were correctly set for daylight saving time.
According to the Journal, he was not allowed to gather his belongings before being escorted out of the White House.
WASHINGTON—President some rich asshole’s personal assistant, John McEntee, was escorted out of the White House on Monday, two senior administration officials said. The cause of the firing was an unspecified security issue, said a third White House official with knowledge of the situation.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders declined to comment saying, “We don’t comment on personnel issues.” Mr. McEntee didn’t return a call seeking comment.
Tuesday morning, the rich asshole presidential campaign issued a statement saying that Mr. McEntee will join the 2020 effort as a senior adviser for campaign operations.
In additional staff turnover, some rich asshole on Tuesday said Rex Tillerson was out as secretary of state, after months of speculation over his fate, and that Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo would be nominated to lead the State Department.
A tally of senior officials and aides who have left the administration
Mr. McEntee wasn’t as well known as the others, but had been a constant presence at some rich asshole’s side for the past three years. He made sure some rich asshole had markers to sign autographs, delivered messages to him in the White House residence and, over the weekend, ensured that the clocks in the White House residence were adjusted for daylight-saving time.
“It’s not going to be great for morale,” one White House official said about Mr. McEntee’s departure.
Mr. McEntee was removed from the White House grounds on Monday afternoon without being allowed to collect his belongings, a White House official said. He left without his jacket, a second White House official said.
It wasn’t clear exactly why Mr. McEntee was fired Monday. He indicated to colleagues that it was an issue in his background.
Mr. Kelly told reporters earlier this month that when he joined the White House as chief of staff this summer, he realized a large number of staffers still held interim clearances after more than seven months in the administration.
His review turned up “a couple spreadsheets worth of people” at the White House operating with interim security clearance after the first nine months of the rich asshole administration. He also found at least 35 officials who were inappropriately given top secret clearance.
some rich asshole during CNN debate (Photo: Screen capture via video)
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President some rich asshole’s personal assistant John McEntee was escorted out of White House Monday but it’s unclear why.
According to the Wall Street Journal, two administration officials confirmed McEntee was canned, however, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused to comment.
“We don’t comment on personnel issues,” she said.
McEntee was one of the longest-serving aides to the rich asshole and his position dates back to the early days of the campaign. Prior to that, it was mostly the president’s family that surrounded him, along with Stephen Miller, Dan Scavino and Hope Hicks.
He wasn’t well known in public but was constantly beside the rich asshole for the last three years. His responsibilities consisted of having markers for the rich asshole to sign autographs, delivering messages to the residence and ensuring the clocks in the White House residence were adjusted for daylight-savings.
“It’s not going to be great for morale,” an official said.
Officials also said he was escorted to the building even without his jacket. He indicated to his colleagues it may have been about his background check.
According to Paris Dennard, a Republican operative and close ally to the rich asshole, McEntee will now rejoin the campaign team along with Katrina Pierson.
“It was announced today by the rich asshole Campaign that John McEntee will re-join the team and serve as the new Senior Advisor for campaign operations based in D.C.” he tweeted.
It was announced today by the Trump Campaign that John McEntee will re-join the team and serve as the new Senior Advisor for campaign operations based in D.C.
The Chinese leaders had reportedly included Caesar salad on the menu for a dinner with the rich asshole, Tillerson and other top U.S. officials in November. The event was held in China's Great Hall of the People during the rich asshole's tour of Asia.
the rich asshole grew worried that the Chinese officials might be offended if the U.S. leaders didn’t eat the salad, the Journal reported.
“Rex, eat the salad,” the rich asshole told his top diplomat, according to the newspaper.
Tillerson reportedly laughed off the president’s comment.
The Journal cited the incident as an example of the sometimes tense relationship between the rich asshole and Tillerson.
the rich asshole ousted Tillerson as secretary of State in a tweet Tuesday morning, replacing him with CIA Director Mike Pompeo.
Under Secretary of State Steve Goldstein said that Tillerson did not talk to the rich asshole ahead of his dismissal and that Tillerson was “unaware” of why he was fired, contradicting the White House's account of the firing.
Tillerson said Tuesday afternoon that his last day at the State Department would be March 31, and that he was delegating his duties to Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan at the end of Tuesday.
The outgoing top diplomat thanked State Department staffers in his remarks, but did not thank the rich asshole.
The White House has reportedly fired an aide at the State Department who contradicted the official account of President the rich asshole's firing of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
The Associated Press first reported the firing of Under Secretary of State Steve Goldstein, citing officials.
The firing was reportedly prompted by a statement from Goldstein on Tuesday, responding to Tillerson's firing, in which Goldstein said Tillerson did not speak with the rich asshole before his firing and is "unaware" of the reason behind his dismissal.
The statement strongly suggested that Tillerson found out about his firing from Twitter — though it differs from published accounts of the decision that cited unnamed White House sources.
Goldstein also said that Tillerson had "every intention of staying" before his firing.
The Associated Press, citing two unnamed White House officials, reported that Tillerson was told he would be removed on Friday, and NBC News tweeted that White House chief of staff John Kelly delivered the news to him on Friday. The Associated Press reported that Kelly had told Tillerson that there might be a presidential tweet that would concern him.
In comments outside the White House, the rich asshole said he was "close to having the Cabinet and other things that I want” with Tillerson exiting and Pompeo moving to a different role.
"I've worked with Mike Pompeo now for quite some time. Tremendous energy, tremendous intellect. We're always on the same wavelength. The relationship has been very good and that's what I need as secretary of State," the rich asshole said. "I wish Rex Tillerson well."
After praising Gina Haspel, his pick to replace Pompeo at the CIA, the rich asshole said, “I'm really at a point where we're getting very close to having the Cabinet and other things that I want.”
“But I think Mike Pompeo will be a truly great secretary of State. I have total confidence in him.”
Pompeo has been giving the rich asshole briefings and had been rumored as a potential replacement for Tillerson, who frequently clashed with the president.
Asked if he had discussed the change with Tillerson, the rich asshole said: "I really didn't discuss it very much with him, honestly. I made that decision by myself."
He then noted differences he had with Tillerson, who once reportedly referred to the president as a "moron" in private.
“When you look at the Iran deal, I think it’s terrible. I guess he thought it was okay,” the president said of Tillerson.
“I wanted to either break it or do something, and he felt a little bit differently. So we were really not thinking the same.”
The president also said that he believed Tillerson would be “much happier” leaving the State Department.
Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all!
The White House said the rich asshole asked Tillerson to step down on Friday so the president could have a “new team in place” for an upcoming meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
But a State Department spokesman told CNN that Tillerson found out about his firing when the rich asshole announced it on Twitter on Tuesday.
According to a statement that followed the rich asshole’s announcement, Tillerson ”had every intention of staying,” the State Department said. “The Secretary did not speak to the President and is unaware of the reason.”
The State Department official who contradicted the White House on Tillerson’s firing was also fired, The Associated Press reported.
the rich asshole told reporters on Tuesday that he “made that decision by myself” to remove Tillerson, and noted that “Rex, as you know, was not in this country” at the time. He alluded to their disagreements, saying, “we were not thinking the same,” and predicted, “Rex will be happier now.”
Tillerson cut short a trip to Africa, returning to Washington Monday night. Reporters traveling with him said that they had no idea the secretary of state had been fired on Friday.
Tillerson’s departure comes amid reports of his disappointment with the turbulent atmosphere in the rich asshole’s White House, as well as mounting criticism of his performance as the country’s leading diplomat and his drastic reduction of civil servant positions at the State Department.
His job security had always seemed precarious, but on Nov. 30, The New York Times reported that the White House was considering forcing out Tillerson and replacing him with Pompeo.
The White House and State Department pushed back on the report, but that day, neither the rich asshole nor White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders would definitively say whether the president had confidence in Tillerson.
“He’s here. Rex is here,” the rich asshole told reporters.
“When the president loses confidence in somebody, they’ll no longer be here,” Sanders said at that day’s White House press briefing.
the rich asshole and Tillerson’s relationship has long been filled with tension.Tillerson reportedly considered resigning after the rich asshole’s widely criticized speech to the Boy Scouts of America in July.
Following the report, Tillerson held an unusual press conference, in which he showered the rich asshole with praise, affirming that the president is “smart.”
Notably, he did not dispute whether he called the rich asshole “a moron,” leaving that job to State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, who claimed that “the secretary does not use that type of language.”
Attacking the reporting as “phony,” the rich asshole later said he appreciated Tillerson’s comments and that he had “total confidence in Rex.”
“And I can tell you who is going to win,” he added.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed the rich asshole’s comment was “a joke” and said that he “never implied that the secretary of state was not incredibly intelligent.”
the rich asshole has repeatedly undermined Tillerson’s diplomatic efforts in attempting to quell North Korea’s nuclear aggression, with the two men often contradicting each other and the president lambasting Tillerson on Twitter.
Tillerson’s days as secretary of state seemed numbered from the start.
A government outsider lacking diplomatic experience, he arrived at Foggy Bottom after decades at Exxon Mobil Corp., rising from engineer in 1975 to chairman and CEO in 2006, overseeing vast expansion of the company’s operations worldwide.
the rich asshole picked Tillerson for the State Department job after a lengthy public vetting of prominent candidates, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Tillerson faced opposition during his Senate confirmation process, with lawmakers expressing concerns over his lack of experience in government and diplomacy, and strong ties with Russian leader Vladimir Putin from years of business in the country.
Even Tillerson himself had been reluctant to accept the position. “I didn’t want this job. I didn’t seek this job,” he admitted to the conservative news outlet Independent Journal Review in March.
“My wife told me I’m supposed to do this,” he responded when an aide asked him why he accepted the position anyway.
KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERS
President some rich asshole and Tillerson during a meeting on June 12.
Once in office, Tillerson sought to reorganize the State Department and prioritize its activities toward business and security. He publicly illustrated the pivot after weeks on the job, opting to skip the presentation of the department’s annual human rights report.
During his tenure, the department faced drastic budget cuts and a crucial leadership vacuum. Amid massive international challenges like North Korea’s nuclear arms race and the war in Syria, the rich asshole proposed cutting the State Department budget by nearly one-third. Dozens of vacancies remained unfilled, including top deputies, because of White House refusal to accept Tillerson’s picks.
Tillerson and the White House also clashed on policy and messaging.
As a diplomatic crisis in Qatar unfolded, the rich asshole directly undermined Tillerson’s calls for calm, expressing support for Saudi Arabia’s economic and diplomatic blockade of the Gulf state, and accusing Qatar of funding terrorism.
In an August interview, Tillerson declined to defend the rich asshole’s support for “America’s values,” telling Fox News that “the president speaks for himself.” The questioning arose during a conversation about the rich asshole’s much criticized response to violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, earlier that month, when counterprotesters clashed with hate groups protesting the planned removal of a statue honoring Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
From the White House, the president’s senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, often ran a parallel track of diplomacy ― traveling to Israel and the Palestinian territories to explore ways to revive peace talks, and interacting with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.
Sources told CNN in July that Tillerson was becoming increasingly frustrated with the White House. In late August, Axios reported that the rich asshole was losing patience with his secretary of state, in part because key roles at the department still remained unfilled more than eight months into the rich asshole’s presidency. A State Department spokesperson told Axios that Tillerson was working to fill the vacancies but that the White House was effectively sitting on his recommendations.
Nauert had repeatedly insisted Tillerson was not considering resignation. Asked if a July vacation indicated Tillerson wanted to step away from the spotlight, Nauert said the secretary was “just taking a little time off” after that month’s G-20 summit.
DOD VIA GETTY IMAGES
Jared Kushner on a visit to Iraq in April.
Tillerson, like the rich asshole, wasn’t a fan of reporters’ questions, doing away with the State Department’s daily briefing and limiting media access during his foreign travels.
He said he wasn’t “a big media press-access person,” when he allowed just one journalist ― a reporter from the Independent Journal Review ― to accompany him on a visit to South Korea. The move backfired. American journalists were unable to challenge an embarrassing report in the Korea Herald that the secretary had canceled a dinner with South Korean officials because he was fatigued.
CARLOS BARRIA/REUTERS
Former national security adviser Michael Flynn was forced to step down in February.
National security adviser Michael Flynnwas forced to step down in February following revelations that he discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with that country’s ambassador before the rich asshole’s inauguration.
On May 9, the rich asshole fired FBI Director James Comey, who had been leading an investigation into whether the rich asshole’s campaign colluded with Russia to influence the presidential election.
Mike Dubke, White House communications director, resigned later in May after months of chaos in the press shop. Press secretary Sean Spicer quit in July, after the president appointed Anthony Scaramucci as the new communications director. Scaramucci resigned after just 10 days, amid a spate of departures that included White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and, less than a month later, chief strategist Steve Bannon.
This article has been updated to include additional comments on Tillerson’s firing.
President the rich asshole said on Tuesday that he made the decision to oust Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on his own, and that Tillerson would be "much happier now."
"I made that decision by myself. Rex wasn't, as you know, in this country," the rich asshole said. Tillerson returned to Washington on Tuesday after a trip to Africa.
"As far as Rex Tillerson is concerned, I very much appreciate his commitment and his service and I wish him well," the rich asshole told reporters outside the White House. "He's a good man."
the rich asshole's comments came minutes after he abruptly announced that he had replaced Tillerson with CIA Director Mike Pompeo. He said that he and Pompeo are "always on the same wavelength."
"Tremendous energy, tremendous intellect," the rich asshole said of Pompeo. "We are always on the same wavelength. The relationship is very, very good, and that's what I need as secretary of State."
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson did not speak to President the rich asshole before his firing on Tuesday and is "unaware" of the reason behind his dismissal, according to a statement from Tillerson's top deputy.
The statement contradicted the White House's version of events. It says White House chief of staff John Kelly told Tillerson that the rich asshole was removing him on Friday.
The State statement came from Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Steve Goldstein, who was reportedly fired a few hours after its release.
"The Secretary did not speak to the President this morning and is unaware of the reason, but he is grateful for the opportunity to serve, and still believes strongly that public service is a noble calling and not to be regretted," Goldstein said in a statement.
Goldstein also said that Tillerson had "every intention of staying" before his firing.
"He established and enjoyed relationships with his counterparts. He will miss his colleagues at the Department of State and enjoyed working together with the Department of Defense in an uncommonly robust relationship," he said.
"We wish Secretary Designate Pompeo well," the statement concluded, referring to CIA Director Mike Pompeo, whom the rich asshole tapped to succeed Tillerson.
WOW: Tillerson had "every intention of staying... did not speak to the President and is unaware of the reason," according to Under Sec of State Goldstein.
A White House official told The Hill that Kelly called Tillerson on Friday night to tell him that the rich asshole had decided to let him go. The official said the call was short, not testy, and did not focus on policy differences.
Tillerson, who was on a diplomatic trip to Africa, asked if the news could be held back until his return. The White House agreed, and the news came out hours after Tillerson's return Tuesday morning.
Tillerson had cut the trip short, telling reporters he'd got little sleep and had food poisoning at one of his stops.
In comments outside the White House, the rich asshole heaped praise on Pompeo and alluded to differences with Tillerson, noting their disagreements on Iran.
“When you look at the Iran deal, I think it’s terrible. I guess he thought it was okay,” the rich asshole said. “I wanted to either break it or do something, and he felt a little bit differently. So we were really not thinking the same.”
“I'm really at a point where we're getting very close to having the Cabinet and other things that I want,” the rich asshole said. “But I think Mike Pompeo will be a truly great secretary of State. I have total confidence in him.”
Tillerson and the rich asshole frequently clashed, with the secretary of State reportedly referring to the president as a "moron" in private.
The specific timing of the move—following the secretary of state’s split from the president to condemn a Russian attack in the U.K.—raises questions about its motive.
The White House’s account of the Tillerson firing collapsed within minutes. Senior administration officials told outlets including The Washington Post and CNN that Tillerson had been told he would be dismissed on Friday, March 9. Within the hour, the State Department issued a statement insisting that Tillerson “had every intention of remaining” and “did not speak to the President this morning and is unaware of the reason.” CNN reported that Tillerson had received a call from White House Chief of Staff John Kelly on Friday night indicating that he would be replaced that did not specify timing; a senior White House official told the network that it was the rich asshole himself who had suddenly decided to pull the trigger on Tuesday morning. Tillerson learned of his actual firing the same way everybody else did: By reading about it on Twitter shortly after 8:44 a.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, March 13.
A lot turns on that timing. On March 12, Tillerson had backed the British government’s accusation that Russia was culpable for a nerve-agent attack on United Kingdom soil. If Tillerson had been fired March 9, then his words of support for Britain could not explain his firing three days before. But if the White House was lying about the timing, it could be lying about the motive. And since it now seems all but certain that the White House was lying about the timing, it looks more probable that it was lying about the motive too.
That suspicion was accelerated by the president’s words to the White House press corps before stepping aboard Marine One:
“As soon as we get the facts straight, if we agree with them, we will condemn Russia or whoever it may be.”
That is not support for Britain. It is the direct opposite. Britain and the United States share intelligence information fully, freely, and seamlessly. It’s inconceivable that the U.S. government has not already seen all the information that Theresa May saw before she rose in the House of Commons to accuse Russia. If the U.S. government had a serious concern about the reliability of that information, it would have expressed that concern directly and privately to the U.K. government before May spoke. But the U.S. had no such concern—that’s why the now-fired secretary of state and the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom both endorsed May’s words. When the rich asshole raises doubts about the facts, about American agreement with its British ally, about the accuracy of the British accusation against Russia, the rich asshole is not expressing good-faith uncertainty about imperfect information. the rich asshole is rejecting the consensus view of the U.K. and U.S. intelligence communities about an act of Russian aggression—and, if his past behavior is any indication, preparing the way for his own determination to do nothing. It echoes the approach he took toward Russian intervention in the U.S. election to help elect him in 2016: Feign uncertainty about what is not uncertain in order to justify inaction.
The U.S.-U.K. response to the Russian nerve gas attack should have been coordinated in advance. It was not. The U.S. statement of support for Britain should have arrived on the day that the prime minister delivered her accusation. It did not. The retaliation—if any—should also already be agreed upon. It plainly has not been. The United Kingdom does not find itself deprived of U.S. support because of some British mistake or rush to judgment. Most of the U.S. government shares the British assessment of what happened—as attested by Tillerson’s statement in support of Britain, which would have relied on U.S. intelligence agency reports. Only the rich asshole stands apart, vetoing any condemnation of Russia and perhaps punishing his secretary of state for breaking ranks on the president’s no-criticizing-Putin policy. On June 4, 2017, the rich asshole took to Twitter to chide British officials for taking too long to blame a terror attack on Muslim extremists.
This time, Britain did not hesitate. It has named the assassins. And now it is the rich asshole who is squeamish. On March 10, 2018, the president’s son tweeted:
I’m so glad to wake up in a country where we finally have a president who cares more about America than he does about our enemies feelings. Very refreshing!!! #maga
But apparently some enemies’ feelings command more sensitivity than others. Yesterday, the Republicans on the House intelligence committee announced that they had concluded the investigation of the Russian interference—and would soon publish a report acquitting the rich asshole of collusion. Bad luck for them to release the report on the very day that the rich asshole again demonstrated that something is very, very wrong in the rich asshole-Russia relationship. It’s possible to imagine innocent explanations. And it’s easy to list the plausible explanations. Ominously for the western alliance and the security of the United States, those two sets no longer overlap at all.
"Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State," the rich asshole tweeted.
"He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all!"
Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all!
Tillerson and the rich asshole have had a tempestuous relationship throughout the president's tenure, with published reports, denied by the secretary of State, that he had referred to the rich asshole as a "moron."
The reports prompted the rich asshole to challenge his secretary of State to an IQ test.
There were also differences in rhetoric, including on Monday, when Tillerson pointed the finger at Moscow over the poisoning of a double agent and his daughter in London. The White House earlier in the day had notably not blamed Russia for the incident, despite claims from Great Britain's prime minister.
Late last year, speculation mounted in Washington that Tillerson would be replaced, and reports circulated that Pompeo could be his replacement.
the rich asshole will not publicly criticize Vladimir Putin, who influenced the 2016 election on his behalf. After Secretary of State Rex Tillerson publicly criticized Putin, the rich asshole announced that Tillerson would be fired and replaced with a loyalist.
the rich asshole announced that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson would be removed and replaced by a loyalist hours after Tillerson criticized Russia. the rich asshole has refused to criticize Russia, and to enforce sanctions imposed against that nation.
the rich asshole said CIA director Mike Pompeo “will become our new Secretary of State” in a Twitter post on Tuesday morning.
In an unusual statement, Tillerson said he “had every intention of staying” in his position and that he “did not speak to the President” and was unaware of why he was being purged.
Just hours before the announcement, Tillerson singled out Russia for international criticism.
NBC’s Andrew Mitchell said the removal of Tillerson “came as a shock” to his top advisers, noting, “There was no hint at all to the people closest to him in the State Department that this was about to happen.”
Tillerson has often been at odds with the rich asshole and his nonsensical ranting. He has had to repeatedly proclaim that American policy and positioning was counter to what the rich asshole publicly supported.
Tillerson said Russia was “an irresponsible force of instability in the world,” echoing British outrage over a nerve agent attack that has been traced to Russia.
Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia have been left sick after the attack. In a statement to Parliament, British Prime Minister Theresa May said Russia was responsible, and has demanded an explanation from Vladimir Putin.
Tillerson released a statement after May spoke. On behalf of the United States he said, “we are outraged that Russia appears to have again engaged in such behavior.” Adding, “From Ukraine to Syria — and now the U.K. — Russia continues to be an irresponsible force of instability in the world, acting with open disregard for the sovereignty of other states and the life of their citizens.”
The statement was a noted departure from the soft touch the rich asshole has given Russia.
After multiple U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election on the rich asshole’s behalf, the rich asshole has repeatedly insisted that the story is “fake news.”
In fact, just hours before announcing Tillerson’s removal, the rich asshole tweeted in support of the partisan report from House Republicans claiming that Russia didn’t interfere on his behalf.
After meeting one-on-one with Putin, the rich asshole said the intelligence agency conclusions were in reality a “Democratic hit job,” and that he believed Putin’s purported assertion that he did not interfere.
the rich asshole noted, “I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it.”
After Congress overwhelmingly passed sanctions against Russia for interference, the rich asshole has steadfastly refused to implement them.
Tillerson’s proposed replacement, current CIA director Mike Pompeo, has been far more of a “yes” man to the rich asshole. He has indulged the rich asshole’s conspiratorial thinking and repeatedly used his position to praise the rich asshole.
Pompeo has even claimed that the rich asshole understands intelligence briefings more than veteran spies.
Tillerson famously is alleged to have called the rich asshole a “moron.”
Now, after going further than the rich asshole ever would in criticizing Russia, Tillerson is out of a job, and his replacement is another in a long line of the rich asshole apologists and underlings who won’t rock the boat.
Rex Tillerson during his confirmation hearing (Screenshot)
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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reportedly found out that he was fired due to the tweet that President some rich asshole sent out Tuesday, CNN said on air Tuesday.
“Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job!” the rich asshole tweeted at 8:44 a.m. EST. “Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all!”
Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all!
Tillerson “had every intention of staying” at his job before he was fired. The statement explained. He said that he “did not speak to the president and is unaware of the reason” for his firing.”
WOW! The State Department now confirms to @CNN's @eliselabottcnn that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson found out he was fired from President Trump's tweet.
President the rich asshole announced Tuesday morning that Rex Tillerson is out as Secretary of State. The White House claimed it informed Tillerson he was being asked to step down on Friday, which may explain why he broke from the White House Monday when he condemned Russia for the poisoning of a British spy. Conversely, CNN also reported that Tillerson said that he only learned he was out from the rich asshole’s tweet Tuesday morning.
Sergie Skripal and his daughter, Tulia, were poisoned with a nerve agent developed in Russia last Sunday and remain in critical condition. Prime Minister Theresa May responded by saying it’s “highly likely” that Russia is responsible for the attack, noting that the country is capable of producing the chemical and has a history of state-sponsored assassination, including defectors.
Speaking to the press on a flight on Monday, Tillerson echoed May’s comments, describing the poisoning as part of a “certain unleashing of activity” by Russia that would “certainly trigger a response.” While it remains unclear whether Russia’s government knew of the attack, he said the nerve agent definitely “came from Russia.” Tillerson also revealed that he told British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson that he’s “extremely concerned” about Russia, and his efforts to push the rich asshole administration to resolve differences with the Kremlin “didn’t get very far.”
But these comments directly contradicted what White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was saying — perhaps even simultaneously — during Monday’s press briefing. She was specifically questioned about the poisoning, but refused on three different occasions to even utter the word “Russia,” describing the attack as “reckless, indiscriminate, and irresponsible.”
When pressed on whether or not the U.S. was blaming Russia, Sanders simply said, “Right now, we are standing with our U.K. ally,” suggesting, “I think they’re still working through even some of the details of that.” That’s despite the fact the British had already said the chemical must have come from Russia and that the attack was clearly targeted, not “indiscriminate.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry has called the U.K.’s accusations “a circus show in the British Parliament.”
The State Department said Tuesday morning that Tillerson never spoke to the rich asshole and is unaware of why he was asked to step down. “The secretary had every intention of staying because of the critical progress made in national security,” the statement said.
CNN’s Elise Labott also reported that Steve Goldstein, Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy, said that Tillerson only learned of the ouster from the rich asshole’s tweet Tuesday morning. “It is possible that Secretary Tillerson did get a call from someone kind of giving him a heads up,” she said. “He might have had an inkling that something was going on, but he was not officially notified by anyone in the administration and learned this morning of his firing.”
One State Department official also reportedly claimed that Tillerson only learned of his ouster Tuesday morning from the rich asshole’s tweet, not Friday as the White House suggests.
In comments to the press Tuesday morning, the rich asshole called Tillerson a “very good man,” but admitted they had disagreed on many issues, such as the Iran agreement. the rich asshole also said he didn’t consult Tillerson before agreeing to meet with North Korea. “I made that decision by myself,” the rich asshole disclosed.
the rich asshole also said he was planning to speak to May on Tuesday, saying that it sounded like Russia might be responsible for the poisoning. “I would take that finding as fact,” he said.
the rich asshole, has a long history of avoiding blaming Russia for its actions, as was evident in the caveat in his following remark. “As soon as we get the facts straight — if we agree with them — we will condemn Russia or whoever it may be.”
Rex Tillersonwas ousted from his role as secretary of state on Tuesday, making room for current CIA Director Mike Pompeo to take over the department’s top spot. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) was originally thought to be Pompeo’s replacement when rumors about Tillerson’s departure were first floated back in November, but according to the Washington Post, that role will now go to deputy director Gina Hapsel.
“I am proud to nominate the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Mike Pompeo, to be our new Secretary of State,” President the rich asshole said in a statement to the Post on Tuesday morning. “Mike graduated first in his class at West Point, served with distinction in the U.S. Army, and graduated with Honors from Harvard Law School. He went on to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives with a proven record of working across the aisle.”
Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all!
He added, “Gina Haspel, the Deputy Director of the CIA, will be nominated to replace Director Pompeo and she will be the CIA’s first-ever female director, a historic milestone. Mike and Gina have worked together for more than a year, and have developed a great mutual respect.”
The president also issued a clipped, generic statement on Tillerson himself. “I want to thank Rex Tillerson for his service. A great deal has been accomplished over the last fourteen months, and I wish him and his family well,” he said.
According to Steve Goldstein, the State Department’s undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, Tillerson was not given a reason for his dismissal and had not spoken to the rich asshole.
“The secretary did not speak to the president and is unaware of the reason, but he is grateful for the opportunity to serve, and still believes strongly that public service is a noble calling,” Goldstein said in a statement. “The secretary had every intention of staying because of the critical progress made in national security. He will miss his colleagues at the Department of State and the foreign ministers he has worked with throughout the world.”
Goldstein also contradicted the White House’s statement later on Tuesday morning, saying that Tillerson had found out he was fired after the rich asshole tweeted the news, according to CNN’s Elise Labott.
Ousted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson found out that he had been fired from the tweet from President Trump on Tuesday, according to Steve Goldstein, Undersecretary for public diplomacy, @eliselabottcnn reports.
MORE: Pres. Trump "wanted to make sure to have his new team in place in advance of the upcoming talks with North Korea and various ongoing trade negotiations," a senior White House official tells @ABC. http://abcn.ws/2GmY13Dpic.twitter.com/eDgZ5Uqelb
NEW: State Dept. statement says Sec. Tillerson "had every intention of staying...The Secretary did not speak to the President and is unaware of the reason." http://abcn.ws/2GmY13Dpic.twitter.com/1UuEictuOL
Tillerson’s departure comes as no surprise to those following the ongoing breakdown at the State Department. Following months of back and forth over a number of topics, the tense relationship between the secretary of state and the president came to a head on Tuesday, after Tillerson broke with the White House on the issue of Russian spy poisonings. On Monday, hours after press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders dodged reporter questions about whether the United States believed Russia was to blame for the series of attacks on ex-spies living in the U.K. — contradicting U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May’s fiery rebuke of the country and threats of sanctions — Tillerson issued his own comments to reporters, saying that the attacks had “clearly” come from Russia.
In an official State Department statement on Monday evening, Tillerson added that Russia was “an irresponsible force of instability in the world, acting with open disregard for the sovereignty of other states and the life of their citizens.”
According to Sanders, Tillerson was asked to leave the administration on Friday, ahead of his comments on Russia this week.
Pressure between the two sides has been mounting for some time: in November, top official Maliz Beams, brought on to oversee a massive departmental overhaul, resigned her post, three months after her initial appointment. According to BuzzFeed News, which first broke the story, Beams, the former CEO of VOYA Financial, had clashed with Tillerson over his redesign plans and was unhappy with its parameters.
“Maliz Beams is stepping away from her role here at the Department of State and is returning to her home in Boston. Effective immediately, [deputy chief of staff] Christine Ciccone will step in to lead the redesign effort and manage its daily activities,” a spokesperson told reporters.
Ciccone has significantly less experience than her predecessor, as ThinkProgress previously reported.
Beams was the second high-profile figure to leave the State Department around that time. On November 20, official spokespersons announced that Acting Chief Information Officer Frontis Wiggins, who has been in his current position since last year, would be retiring on December 8. Wiggins, who had served in government for more than 30 years, was replaced by principal deputy chief information officer Robert Adams.
Both Beams’ and Wiggins’ departures came at a tense time for Tillerson, who had faced criticism over his apparent inability to fill crucial roles within the State Department. In August, the Los Angeles Times reported that Tillerson’s refusal to hire staffers for special envoy positions and foreign service or diplomatic posts had drained morale and left existing employees floundering.
“There is a dearth of clear information — no sense of who is making decisions or how…no sense of dialogue or trust,” one senior official told the outlet. “Even if the positions are filled in the coming years, it will require a long period of rebuilding relationships that diplomats count on [to do their jobs].”
That struggle seemed not to bother Tillerson, who “embraced a White House proposal to slash the combined State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development budget by nearly a third [in 2018], from $54.9 billion to $37.6 billion,” according to the LA Times. Nor did it trouble President the rich asshole, who waved off concerns over the department’s mass of empty desks in early November by calling it a “cost-saving” decision.
“We don’t need all the people that they want. Don’t forget, I’m a businessperson and I tell my people, ‘Where you don’t need to fill slots don’t fill them,'” he said, during an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham.
He added, “The one that matters is me. I’m the only one that matters because when it comes to it, that’s what the policy is going to be. …It’s called cost saving. There’s nothing wrong with cost saving.”
the rich asshole claimed in that same interview that Tillerson was “in there working hard” and was “doing his best” to run the department, but behind closed doors, the two had reportedly begun to grow distant.
In the months leading up to Tillerson’s departure, he and the rich asshole frequently butted heads over policy minutiae as well as larger, more visible issues.
On North Korea, for instance, Tillerson told reporters in September that the United States was “not in a dark situation, a blackout” with Pyongyang, and that officials were willing to use diplomatic means to try and convince leader Kim Jong-un to wind down his nuclear aggressions.
“We ask, ‘Would you like to talk?'” Tillerson said. “We have lines of communications to Pyongyang — we’re not in a dark situation, a blackout. We have a couple, three channels open to Pyongyang.”
One day later, the rich asshole directly undermined his own secretary of state on Twitter, writing glibly, “I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man. …Save your energy Rex, we’ll do what has to be done!”
In June, the two butted heads over the growing crisis in Qatar, which had met the ire of its gulf neighbors over alleged support of extremist factions. The situation was tenuous: Tillerson issued a statement in response to a Saudi-led blockade in which he detailed the need for de-escalation in the region, calling on the league of Arab nations behind it to instead employ mediation.
“This process requires regional and global consensus and mutual understanding,” Tillerson wrote. “We ask that there be no further escalation by the parties in the region. We call on Qatar to be responsive to the concerns of its neighbors.”
He added that the blockade had created “a hardship on the people of Qatar and the people whose livelihoods depend on commerce with Qatar.”
An hour later, addressing reporters in a Rose Garden press conference, the rich asshole called the blockade “hard but necessary,” and insisted that Qatar had been “a funder of terrorism at a very high level.”
“Our great generals and military people,” he added, “the time has come to call on Qatar to end that funding…and its extremist ideology.”
Earlier in the month, the president had taken an even more aggressive stance on the controversy, tweeting at one point, “During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar – look!”
The back and forth between the rich asshole and Tillerson came to a head in early October, when it was revealed that Tillerson had allegedly called the rich asshole a “fucking moron” during a meeting with high-ranking officials. NBC News later reported that the original comment had occurred following a July 20 national security meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. According to the outlet, Tillerson was responding to the rich asshole’s earlier comment of wanting to increase the country’s nuclear arsenal tenfold.
A State Department spokesperson later denied the report, although Tillerson did not specifically deny calling the president a moron.
It’s unclear whether Defense Secretary Mattis and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin — who reportedly agreed to a “suicide-pact” with Tillerson, wherein the remaining two would resign should one of them be ousted — will vacate their posts as well, given Tillerson’s departure. Tillerson, for his part, has denied that such an agreement exists.
The decision to fire Tillerson comes at a tenuous time: as the Post notes, the president is currently preparing to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to discuss the nation’s continued nuclear ambitions and missile launches; the White House is also in the midst of trade talks, having recently issued an announcement outlining its intent to levy tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. The announcement has already attracted backlash from European Union leaders, who issued their own retaliatory tariffs on dozens of U.S.-made products.
Both Pompeo and Haspel issued their own separate statements on Tuesday morning, following news of Tillerson’s departure.
“I am deeply grateful to President the rich asshole for permitting me to serve as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and for this opportunity to serve as Secretary of State,” Pompeo said. “His leadership has made America safer and I look forward to representing him and the American people to the rest of the world to further America’s prosperity.”
Added Haspel, “After 30 years as an officer of the Central Intelligence Agency, it has been my honor to serve as its Deputy Director alongside Mike Pompeo for the past year. I am grateful to President the rich asshole for the opportunity, and humbled by his confidence in me, to be nominated to be the next Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.”
This article has been updated with additional comments from the State Department and to clarify the contradictory timeline surrounding Tillerson’s firing offered by the White House.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Tuesday deflected questions about President some rich asshole’s firing of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and instead chose to focus on qualifications of the new nominee, Mike Pompeo.
MSNBC’s Garrett Haake caught up with Graham in the U.S. Capitol Building soon after the rich asshole announced on Twitter that he was firing Tillerson.
“I appreciate Rex’s service to the country,” Graham said. “Pompeo is a great choice. The primary job of the secretary of state is to be able to execute policy and to explain policy to the world in terms of what the president is thinking. Nobody is closer to President the rich asshole than Mike Pompeo. So in that regard, I think he’ll be very effective.”
Haake noted that Tillerson “had a much more muscular stance on Russia than the president did.”
“How much of a factor do you think that might have been in this decision?” the MSNBC reporter asked.
“I don’t think Mike Pompeo is taking a backseat to anyone when it comes to Russia,” the senator insisted. “Mike is very clear that Russians interfered in our election and that Russians are a bad actor. I don’t think it has anything to do with that.”
As Haake pointed out that “two top level cabinet [are] officials out in a week,” Graham began running away from the reporter without explaining why.
“How much does that concern you about people who are advising the president?” Haake wondered.
“I think Pompeo is a good choice,” Graham replied as he dashed into a meeting room.
Rex Tillerson was fired as secretary of State on Tuesday,ending a tumultuous tenure as America's top diplomat that was marked by a series of public disagreements with his boss — President some rich asshole.
the rich asshole said he will nominate CIA Director Mike Pompeo to replace the former Exxon Mobil chief executive and Deputy CIA Director Gina Haspel to run the spy agency. She would become the first woman to do so.
The Washington Post first reported the news, which the president quickly confirmed in a tweet. Tillerson found out about his firing through the rich asshole's tweet Tuesday morning, NBC News reported, citing a senior State Department official.
Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all!
State Department spokesman Steve Goldstein said Tillerson had no plans to leave. He "did not speak to the president this morning and is unaware of the reason" for his firing, the spokesman added.
Two White House officials told the Associated Press that Tillerson found out he was fired Friday. The secretary got a call from White House chief of staff John Kelly but only got told an unspecified presidential tweet concerning him may be coming, officials at the State Department told the wire service
the rich asshole later told reporters he disagreed with Tillerson on some issues and feels the diplomat "will be much happier now."
"Rex and I have been talking about this for a long time. We got along actually quite well, but we disagreed on things," the president said as he left for California. "When you look at the Iran deal, I think it's terrible, I guess he thought it was OK. … So we were not really thinking the same. With Mike Pompeo, we have a very similar thought process. I think it's going to go very well."
In a statement, the rich asshole said he is confident Pompeo "is the right person for the job at this critical juncture." The Army veteran and former congressman will "continue our program of restoring America's standing in the world, strengthening our alliances, confronting our adversaries, and seeking the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," the president said.
If confirmed by the Senate, Pompeo would take on Tillerson's tough task of coordinating policy with an often unpredictable president. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said he plans to hold Pompeo's confirmation hearing next month.
Tillerson's departure was widely expected for months, but he reportedly wanted to serve a full year.
It is unclear what the secretary of State's exit means for other top Cabinet officials. Tillerson, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin reportedly forged a "suicide pact" in which the others would resign if the rich asshole tried to remove one of them.
Since Tillerson took the post in February 2017, mixed messages repeatedly came out of the White House and a State Department with diminishing relevance. The intramural clashes between the president and secretary of State came amid major international crises, including a potential nuclear showdown with North Korea.
the rich asshole confirmed on Tuesday he did not consult with Tillerson when making last week's decision to meet with North Korea's Kim Jong Un.
Tensions between the president and his top diplomat hit one high when Tillerson, 65, publicly distanced himself from the president's defiant response to violence at the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year.
But there were numerous other clashes.
The policy rift emerged most sharply when the rich asshole tweeted in October that Tillerson is "wasting his time" trying to negotiate with North Korea to end its nuclear and missile programs.
The president wrote: "Save your energy, Rex, we'll do what has to be done!"
In October, NBC News reported that Tillerson already came close to resigning last summer but was urged to stay in the job until the end of the year. He referred to the rich asshole as a "moron" in July following a meeting with the president's national security team, according to NBC, which cited multiple high-level administration sources.
Tillerson never denied using "moron" to describe the president.
Tillerson was among the rich asshole's deputies who tried to prevent the president from pulling the United States out of the Paris climate agreement and taking steps to scrap the Iran nuclear deal.
In an early clash, the rich asshole criticized Qatar as "a funder of terrorism" in June about an hour after Tillerson urged Gulf states to ease a blockade against the tiny monarchy.
—CNBC's Tom DiChristopher contributed to this report.
Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA.
Author: Ray Locker and David Jackson, USA TODAY
Published: 9:31 AM EDT March 13, 2018
Updated: 9:31 AM EDT March 13, 2018
After months of disputes with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, President the rich asshole removed him Tuesday and nominated CIA Director Mike Pompeo to head the State Department.
"I am confident (Pompeo) is the right person for the job at this critical juncture," the rich asshole said in a statement. "He will continue our program of restoring America’s standing in the world, strengthening our alliances, confronting our adversaries, and seeking the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."
the rich asshole's statement did not mention Tillerson, with whom he has been at odds on issues ranging from North Korea to steel and aluminum tariffs throughout the first 14 months of his administration.
A top State Department official says the rich asshole never explained to Tillerson the reason why he was fired.
The undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, Steve Goldstein, says Tillerson "had every intention of staying" in the job because he felt he was making critical progress in national security.
Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all!
Two White House officials said Tillerson was told he was out on Friday. The sources weren't authorized to speak publicly and demanded anonymity.
But Goldstein says Tillerson "did not speak to the president and is unaware of the reason."
Goldstein says Tillerson will miss his colleagues at the State Department and the foreign ministers he worked with.
In a written statement that followed the tweet, Pompeo said that, if confirmed, "I look forward to guiding the world’s finest diplomatic corps in formulating and executing the President’s foreign policy."
In his time at the CIA, the former Kansas congressman said, "I have worked alongside many remarkable Foreign Service officers and Department of State leaders serving here in the United States and on the very edge of freedom."
Gina Haspel, currently deputy director of the CIA, will become the agency's first woman director of the CIA.
A 30-year veteran of the CIA, Haspel said, "I look forward to providing President the rich asshole the outstanding intelligence support he has grown to expect during his first year in office."
Both Pompeo and Haspel must be confirmed by the Senate.
The decision ends a tumultuous tenure for Tillerson, who often seemed at odds with the rich asshole or out of the loop altogether.
the rich asshole’s tweet Tuesday came the day after Tillerson blamed Russia for an assassination in London — something the White House had specifically declined to do just hours before.
Last Thursday, Tillerson said it would be premature for the rich asshole to hold talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Later that evening, the rich asshole said he would meet Kim by May to discuss the future of North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
Last year, Tillerson said the United States should talk with North Korea, which the rich asshole quickly shot down.
Tillerson also opposed the rich asshole's decision this month to impose tariffs on certain steel and aluminum imports.
At one point last year, Tillerson reportedly called the rich asshole "a moron" after a national security meeting.
the rich asshole is nominating Gina Haspel, Pompeo’s current deputy, to lead the CIA.
the rich asshole told reporters Tuesday morning that he made the decision “by myself,” signaling he did not speak with Tillerson before firing him.
“I actually got along great with Rex, but really, it was a different mindset,” the rich asshole said from the White House.
Those comments belied the fact that the rich asshole and Tillerson had repeatedly clashed, most famously when the secretary of State reportedly referred to the rich asshole in private as a "moron." The report clearly got under the rich asshole's skin, and the president responded by challenging Tillerson to an IQ test.
the rich asshole tweeted the news of the staff changes shortly after Tillerson's firing was first reported by The Washington Post.
"Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State," the rich asshole tweeted.
"He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all!"
Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all!
A White House official told The Hill that White House chief of staff John Kelly called Tillerson on Friday night to tell him that the rich asshole had decided to let him go. The official said the call was short and not testy, and that it was not focused on policy issues or differences.
Tillerson asked and Kelly agreed that an announcement would be held back until Tillerson's return. Tillerson returned to the United States early Tuesday morning — hours before the Post story broke.
State Department officials did not immediately respond to The Hill’s requests for comment on Tillerson’s abrupt ouster, though a State Department official released a statement that said Tillerson was unaware of the reason for his removal.
"The Secretary had every intention of remaining because of the tangible progress made on critical national security issues," said the statement from Steve Goldstein, under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs.
"The Secretary did not speak to the President this morning and is unaware of the reason, but he is grateful for the opportunity to serve, and still believes strongly that public service is a noble calling and not to be regretted."
Tillerson and the rich asshole have had a tempestuous relationship, so it was not shocking that Tillerson would be removed.
However, the timing of Tillerson's firing was a surprise, given the diplomatic workload at the moment.
On Thursday, the rich asshole shocked the world by accepting an invitation to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which would make him the first sitting U.S. president to meet with a North Korean leader. It's possible that Tillerson's removal was made with that meeting in mind, if the rich asshole wanted Pompeo by his side for the historic occasion.
He's also moving forward with a Middle East peace plan after angering the Arab world by announcing the U.S. would move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
And the administration continues to deal with Russia and its entanglement in the 2016 presidential election — with critics charging that the rich asshole has not taken a tough enough approach with the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
There were differences in rhetoric between Tillerson and the White House on foreign policy, including on Monday, when Tillerson pointed the finger at Moscow over the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in London. The White House earlier in the day had notably not blamed Russia for the incident, despite claims from Great Britain's prime minister.
Late last year, speculation mounted in Washington that Tillerson would be replaced, and reports circulated that Pompeo could be his successor.
Tillerson was one of the first Cabinet secretaries to be confirmed in the rich asshole administration, but his brief tenure has been rocked by criticism and continuing signs of low morale at the State Department, where he has often been perceived as an absent leader.
Tillerson, a low-key Texan, never felt comfortable in Washington and did his best to work in private and avoid the media. He faced scrutiny in Washington, even from Republican lawmakers, as he has overseen a controversial redesign of the State Department that has been unpopular among officials there.
Many career diplomats have exited under his leadership, and Tillerson has reportedly clashed with White House officials on key appointments.
Pompeo, meanwhile, is viewed as one of the rich asshole’s most trusted Cabinet members. He reportedly meets nearly daily with the rich asshole to brief him on national security, which requires him to travel from CIA headquarters in Virginia to the White House.
Pompeo, a former Republican congressman, has taken a decidedly more hawkish stance than Tillerson on matters such as North Korea and the Iran nuclear deal.
In a statement, Pompeo said he was “deeply grateful” to the rich asshole for allowing him to serve as CIA chief and now secretary of State. He will now need to be confirmed by the full Senate to lead the State Department.
“If confirmed, I look forward to guiding the world’s finest diplomatic corps in formulating and executing the President’s foreign policy,” Pompeo said. “In my time as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, I have worked alongside many remarkable Foreign Service officers and Department of State leaders serving here in the United States and on the very edge of freedom.”
Tillerson’s removal comes days before he was slated to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the department’s fiscal year 2019 budget request. The State Department, like other agencies, has been dealt deep cuts in the rich asshole administration's funding proposals, while the departments of Defense and Homeland Security have seen their budgets increased.
The decision to replace Tillerson, a former CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp., throws into further uncertainty the State Department’s most senior ranks. The agency has seen an exodus of longtime career officials under Tillerson, which has been highlighted in recent months by the departures of some of the department's most experienced diplomats.
Despite Tillerson’s rocky tenure at the State Department, he has indicated in more recent months that he planned to remain at the agency for the foreseeable future. He told CNN in an interview in January that he intended to stay on at least through 2018.
“I intend to be here for the whole year,” he said at the time.
Rebecca Savransky and Jonathan Easley contributed to this report, which was updated at 12:19 p.m.
(CNN)President some rich asshole announced Tuesday that he has fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and will nominate CIA Director Mike Pompeo to succeed him, replacing his top diplomat ahead of a potential high-stakes sitdown between the US President and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Tillerson's departure follows months of tension between him and the rich asshole. Gina Haspel, the current CIA deputy director, stands to take over the agency, the rich asshole tweeted Tuesday morning.
Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all!
Speaking to reporters at the White House, the rich asshole said he respected Tillerson's "intellect" and said he "got along well with Rex."
"I think Rex will be much happier now," the rich asshole said.
Tillerson did not speak to the rich asshole and is unaware of the reason behind his firing, Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy Steve Goldstein said.
the rich asshole "thought it was the right time for the transition with the upcoming North Korea talks and various trade negotiations," a senior administration official said, adding that the rich asshole asked Tillerson to step aside on Friday. A senior White House official later clarified that chief of staff John Kelly told Tillerson that he would be replaced, but did not specify the timing.
Goldstein said Tillerson was notified of the official termination in the rich asshole's tweet Tuesday morning.
Asked how Tillerson learned of his dismissal, the rich asshole said Tuesday that "Rex and I have been talking about this a long time." He specifically mentioned the Iran nuclear deal as an example of disagreement.
"We were not really thinking the same," the rich asshole said. "With Mike Pompeo, we have a similar thought process."
the rich asshole: Tillerson and I didn't think the same03:06
the rich asshole eyed Pompeo for months
the rich asshole has wanted Pompeo as his secretary of state for months now, and the White House began planning for him to take the job last fall, sources told CNN. the rich asshole told reporters Tuesday that he and Pompeo are "on the same wavelength" and "the relationship has always been very good and that is what I need."
the rich asshole's anger at Tillerson after it leaked last year that his secretary of state called him "a moron" never subsided, and many in the White House saw their differences as irreconcilable.
Tillerson had few, if any, allies in the West Wing. Though Kelly was initially on his side when he took over, he eventually grew weary of defending him -- especially after the "moron" remark, which Kelly saw as insubordination on Tillerson's part.
Sources close to the President say it was clear Tillerson didn't support the rich asshole. They say Tillerson wanted to handle foreign policy his own way, without the President. the rich asshole didn't feel that Tillerson backed him, a source told CNN.
the rich asshole and his top aides have spent recent days attempting to quell talk of a White House in chaos, with the President tweeting earlier this month that there was "no Chaos, only great Energy" in the White House. But five top the rich asshole administration officials -- ranging from communications professionals to Tillerson -- have resigned or been fired in the last two weeks.
Director of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn, the rich asshole top economic adviser, resigned from the White House last week after a dispute over new tariffs on steel and aluminum. Hope Hicks, the rich asshole's communications director and longtime confidante, resigned late last month. the rich asshole's longtime personal aide John McEntee was fired and escorted from the White House on Monday, sources tell CNN. And Josh Raffel, a senior spokesman who worked extensively with the rich asshole's daughter and senior adviser Ivanka the rich asshole, left the White House last month.
Tillerson: the rich asshole tweets don't change policy00:53
High-stakes moment
Tillerson's departure comes just as the rich asshole administration embarks on its most difficult and ambitious foreign policy goal to date -- engaging the nuclear armed North Korean regime. the rich asshole is set to meet Kim by the end of May.
Tillerson had spearheaded the maximum pressure campaign that the administration credits with bringing the North Koreans to the negotiating table, bringing the issue up in every country meeting he had, no matter how seemingly unrelated.
On a recent flight back from Africa, Tillerson spoke with reporters off camera, and seemed almost to lobby for his ability to continue the job.
"I have a lot of confidence in my ability to create the conditions for successful negotiations between two very disparate parties," Tillerson said, adding that he and others were working to prepare the rich asshole to deal with Kim. "But I'm not the only guy working on this. Others are working on this as well. We have an obligation to prepare the President for that meeting and I think there is some ground work we can do ahead of that that will help with that preparation."
the rich asshole and Tillerson's tense relationship02:27
Rocky tenure
It was a rocky tenure for Tillerson. Since his swearing in on February 1, 2017, Tillerson had to contend with a President who publicly undercut him as well as tension with the rich asshole son-in-law Jared Kushner, who effectively ran a shadow State Department on Middle East issues. There was also competition from US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley and a litany of complaints from diplomats, State Department staff and others in Washington that he was running a deeply dysfunctional agency.
Tillerson's cost cutting has lead to the agency's senior tiers "being depleted at a dizzying speed," and "a decapitation of its leadership ranks," Amb. Barbara Stephenson, president of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), a union for US foreign service personnel, wrote in her group's publication.
"There is simply no denying the warning signs that point to mounting threats to our institution -- and to the global leadership that depends on us," Stephenson wrote.
Tillerson aggressively pushed back against such criticisms in a November 28 appearance, portraying it as an insult to State Department staff. "I'm offended on their behalf when people say somehow we don't have a State Department that functions," Tillerson said. "I can tell you it's functioning very well from my perspective."
But a steady drip of negative news, and reports of Tillerson's alleged resentment over Ivanka the rich asshole leading a delegation to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in India in November, continued to undermine Tillerson.
His ouster was preceded by a painfully public airing of his troubles with the President, heightened when Sen. Bob Corker, the Tennessee Republican who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations committe, faulted the rich asshole for his tendency to "publicly castrate" the secretary of state. That exchange forced Tillerson, when asked about the comment by CNN's Jake Tapper, to declare, "I checked. I'm fully intact."
By that point, in mid-October, an administration official was telling CNN that Tillerson was on thin ice, even as the President was publicly declaring he had confidence in his top diplomat.
The castration episode followed an extraordinary October 4 public statement in which Tillerson stressed his commitment to his job as secretary of state, but didn't definitively deny an NBC report that he had called the rich asshole a "moron."
That report also detailed Tillerson's "fury" about the ways the rich asshole has undermined him publicly on several foreign policy initiatives and his thoughts about resigning.
Calling the story "erroneous" during his remarks, Tillerson pointed the finger at "some who try to sow dissension" to undermine the President's agenda and said he has been asked "repeatedly" if he's going to step down.
"For some reason, it continues to be misreported," Tillerson complained. "There's never been a consideration in my mind."
The incident cost Tillerson the support of Kelly, a top White House official told CNN.
Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general who was once Tillerson's fiercest defender in the West Wing, stopped defending him privately, fed up with the moron remark because he saw it as insubordination. As one official described it, he had grown weary of trying to defend the indefensible.
Even as Tillerson lost support in the White House, some lawmakers expressed concern about the prospect of his departure. Many saw Tillerson, along with Defense Secretary James Mattis and national security adviser H. R. McMaster, as a serious defender of US national security interests, as opposed to more ideological or inexperienced voices in the White House.
Difficult situation for Tillerson
As Tillerson exits the national stage, he's seen by some as a man who tackled a job he hadn't sought with the diligence and dedication prized by another organization he led, the Boy Scouts of America. Many point to the fact that he was in a situation that made it very difficult to succeed.
Tillerson started the job diverging with the rich asshole on any number of issues, from trade, climate change, Russian interference in the 2016 election and Iran policy. And he encountered headwinds from the President who publicly contradicted or undermined his policies on using diplomacy to defuse tensions with North Korea, and on resolving a dispute between Gulf allies and a host of other issues.
Others have dismissed Tillerson's tenure, saying his business experience hadn't translated into government leadership and pointing to the downsized and demoralized State Department he leaves behind, with many senior diplomatic positions still unfilled.
Critics from both parties said his proposed cuts of up to 30% were damaging US interests, with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright declaring in November that the state of the agency was a "national security emergency."
Foreign envoys also voiced concerns about Tillerson's State Department. In October, one Washington-based envoy described how ambassadors were finding ways to either bypass the State Department or develop work-arounds, because there were no senior officials in place to speak to or because the usual channels within State no longer worked.
"Technically, the State Department has vanished, has disappeared," the envoy said. "It's totally dysfunctional."
James Schwab, the San Francisco spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), resigned last week over what he claims are false characterizations of immigrants being spread by the rich asshole administration, according to San Francisco Chronicle reporter Hamed Aleaziz, who first broke the story.
Schwab told the Chronicle that the ICE agency instructed him to deflect questions after a four-day immigration enforcement operation took place in Northern California recently. He cited ICE Acting Director Thomas Homan and Attorney General Jeff Sessions as part of the reason for his resignation. Last week, both Homan and Sessions heavily criticized Oakland Mayor Libby Scaaf for warning the public about immigration raids “as soon as within the next 24 hours.” the rich asshole administration officials have since claimed that her warning led to “864 criminal aliens” remaining “at large in the community.”
Schwab said the number of individuals was likely far lower and he didn’t want to “perpetuate misleading facts,” according to the publication. The agency, in turn, asked him to deflect questions.
“I quit because I didn’t want to perpetuate misleading facts,” Schwab told the Chronicle. “I asked them to change the information. I told them that the information was wrong, they asked me to deflect, and I didn’t agree with that. Then I took some time and I quit.”
“I didn’t feel like fabricating the truth to defend ourselves against (Schaaf’s) actions was the way to go about it,” he continued. “We were never going to pick up that many people. To say that 100 percent are dangerous criminals on the street, or that those people weren’t picked up because of the misguided actions of the mayor, is just wrong.”
The ICE agency confirmed Schwab’s departure to the Chronicle, but did not provide a reason for his resignation citing confidential matters.
Last week, Sessions called out Schaaf, saying, “Those are 800 wanted criminals that are now at large in that community — 800 wanted criminals that ICE will now have to pursue with more difficulty in more dangerous situations, all because of one mayor’s irresponsible action.”
Schwab was hired by the ICE agency in 2015, but has long worked for the federal government according to his LinkedIn profile.
Schaaf commended Schwab’s resignation Monday, telling the Washington Post, “I commend Mr. Schwab for speaking the truth while under intense pressure to lie. Our democracy depends on public servants who act with integrity and hold transparency in the highest regard.”
“It’s the job of a public affairs officer to offer transparency for the agency you work for,” Schwab told the Chronicle. “I felt like we weren’t doing that. I’ve never been in a situation when I’ve been asked to ignore the facts because it was more convenient.”
Schwab joins other notable federal government workers who publicly resigned over disagreements with the rich asshole administration on immigration. Jordon Dyrdahl-Roberts wrote a piece in mid-February detailing his difficult decision to resign as legal secretary for the Montana Department of Labor and Industry because he didn’t want to help process documents that could help ICE track down and deport undocumented immigrants. Elaine Duke, the acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary, resigned in February after reportedly clashing with the rich asshole administration over ending legal protections for 57,000 Hondurans who had lived in the country for about two decades.
A rich asshole biographer said the firing of Rex Tillerson was another example of the former reality TV star’s chaotic management style — and he warned things would only get worse.
Tim O’Brien, the author of TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald and executive editor at Bloomberg, told MSNBC that he believes the secretary of state was fired for calling out the Kremlin in the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain.
“I think the lesson from Rex Tillerson’s departure is if you want to keep your job in the White House, don’t speak candidly about Russia,” O’Brien said. “Yesterday Sarah Sanders went out of her way to avoid honestly answering questions based off the fact pattern about Russia’s involvement with the murder of a former Soviet spy in London, and on the same day Tillerson speaks candidly about what — which he rarely does about these issues — and the next day he’s axed. Sarah Sanders is still there, Rex Tillerson is gone.”
He said the White House would continue to lurch from controversy to controversy as long as the rich asshole was in charge.
“This White House is being managed like a clown rodeo,” O’Brien said. “Politics aside, partisan politics aside, you can’t manage the federal government, the business campaign, your family life, when everyone around you is constantly getting axed. And it’s also notable that the two most notorious layoffs of the rich asshole administration, Jim Comey and Rex Tillerson appeared when both of them were out of town. That’s a lack of courage in leadership. If you’re going to dismiss somebody, dismiss them to their face.”
WASHINGTON — President some rich asshole asked Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to step aside, the White House confirmed Tuesday, replacing him with CIA Director Mike Pompeo.
In a tweet, the rich asshole thanked Tillerson for his service and said Pompeo "will do a fantastic job."
Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all!
The ouster ends months of discord between the rich asshole and Tillerson, who often seemed out of the loop or in disagreement with the president on major foreign policy decisions. The president also named Gina Haspel as the new head of the CIA, pending the confirmation process. Those hearings are expected to dredge up debates about controversial interrogation tactics, like waterboarding, that might make her path to permanence a rocky one.
The exit was not a voluntary one, the State Department confirmed in a startling statement Tuesday. Tillerson "did not speak to the President and is unaware of the reason" for his firing, Under Secretary of State Steve Goldstein said in a statement Tuesday morning, "but he is grateful for the opportunity to serve." A senior State Department official told NBC that Tillerson found out about his firing through the rich asshole's tweet.
Tillerson, said Goldstein, had "every intention of staying because of the critical progress made in national security."
President the rich asshole explains his decision to fire Rex Tillerson1:22
It's not the first time the president has opted for an indirect approach to firing government aides, avoiding face-to-face confrontation despite being well-known for his willingness to say "you're fired" on national television to contestants on his reality show. His surprise dismissal of former FBI Director James Comey came while Comey was out of town in California, and his tweet announcing the departure of former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus came while the rich asshole was on Air Force One. Priebus was left on the tarmac at Andrews Air Force Base when the plane landed, after the news was out.
On the South Lawn Tuesday, the rich asshole told reporters he was “close” to having the Cabinet he wanted, wishing Tillerson well while predicting “great” things from Pompeo in the State Department role.
"Rex and I have been talking about this for a long time," the president said before boarding Marine One to head to California. While the two got along "well," said the rich asshole, "we disagreed on things."
"We were not really thinking the same," the rich asshole said of Tillerson. "With Mike [Pompeo]...we have a very similar thought process. I think it's gonna go very well."
As for Tillerson, the rich asshole thinks he "will be much happier now."
Though Tillerson's firing dominated headlines early Tuesday, it emerged that the rich asshole campaign original John McEntee — the president's longtime personal assistant — had also left the administration. McEntee will take on a senior role within the rich asshole campaign after abruptly exiting his White House job this week.
Tillerson spent the past week on a lengthy trip through Africa, landing very early Tuesday morning in Washington after cutting his trip short by one day.
the rich asshole fires Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, replaces him with Mike Pompeo3:04
His Africa trip highlighted even more daylight between Tillerson and his boss, most recently on North Korea, as well as the poisoning of a Russian spy last week.
The coming meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un also played a role, a senior administration official told NBC News, saying that the rich asshole “wanted to make sure to have his new team in place in advance of the upcoming talks with North Korea and various ongoing trade negotiations.” the rich asshole said Tuesday that he made the decision to speak with Kim by himself.
Though the timing of the ouster came as a surprise, the move itself was not a shock following months of rumors.
A White House official told NBC News in December of last year that the administration was considering a plan to replace Tillerson with Pompeo. At the time, that official said Tillerson’s allies within the administration had grown scarce — “he’d burned all his bridges,” this person said on condition of anonymity.
The tension between Tillerson and the rich asshole was heightened following NBC News reporting that the former Exxon Mobile mogul openly disparaged the president after a July 20, 2017 meeting at the Pentagon, referring to him as a “moron,” according to three officials familiar with the incident.
The next battlefront on the horizon for the White House may not be an internal one: Pompeo and Haspel will head to the Hill for confirmation to their new positions.
Former CIA Director and NBC analyst John Brennan predicted "close scrutiny" of Haspel's nomination given her years of work at the agency, including time spent running a prison in Thailand that waterboarded and used rough interrogation tactics on terror suspects — a practice the rich asshole has voiced support for in the past.
And Pompeo's past comments on Russia, which have often echoed his boss's less-critical take, are also certain to be a central line of questioning for Republicans and Democrats alike during any future hearings.
A source close to Cotton told NBC Tuesday he was aware of the shakeup before the president's tweet this morning, giving him more notice than most of his fellow senators — and even the secretary of state himself.
Jared Kushner (Photo: Joint Chiefs of Staff/Flickr)
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Two months after President some rich asshole’s son-in-law joined the White House as a senior adviser, his family sold off a stake in a property they own in Brooklyn to a Japanese company whose major shareholder is the Japanese government.
According to an investigation by Bloomberg, the Kushner family made the $103 million dollar deal with Normandy Real Estate Partners, a New Jersey-based investment firm, however documents filed in Japan show that the company was representing a subsidiary of Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. As noted by the report NTT’s largest shareholder is the government which owns one third of the concern.
The report states that this sale is the first business deal discovered so far with a government-affiliated firm since Kushner entered the White House.
Kushner — as well as his family — have been under scrutiny since he began advising the rich asshole over the possibility of using his access to President the rich asshole as a possible sweetener on real estate deals that could be possibly linked to foreign policy decisions by the president.
According to the report, there’s no evidence the NTT company made the investment with a politics in mind — issuing a denial — or that the company and the Japanese government benefited in any way.
(Bloomberg) -- Republicans who control the House Intelligence Committee ended an investigation into the 2016 presidential election over intense objections from Democrats, saying they found no evidence of collusion between President some rich asshole’s campaign and Russian operatives.
The committee’s GOP leaders announced their decision on Monday, adding that they plan to release a report soon on their findings. The probe -- originally intended to be bipartisan -- is ending even though an inquiry by Special Counsel Robert Mueller remains underway and at least four people connected to the president’s campaign are facing criminal charges.
A draft summary of what the Republicans say will ultimately be a final report agrees with assessments by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia conducted cyberattacks on American political institutions and sought to sow discord through social media, but not with their conclusion that the campaign was carried out to help the rich asshole.
“After more than a year, the committee has finished its Russia investigation and will now work on completing our report," the chairman, Devin Nunes of California, said in a statement. "Once the committee’s final report is issued, we hope our findings and recommendations will be useful for improving security and integrity for the 2018 midterm elections.”
Representative Adam Schiff of California, the panel’s top Democrat said Republicans on the committee have been under pressure to end the investigation and doing so now “represents yet another capitulation to the executive branch."
Competing Interests
“By ending its oversight role in the only authorized investigation in the House, the majority has placed the interests of protecting the president over protecting the country, and history will judge its actions harshly,” Schiff added.
In a Twitter post on Monday night, the rich asshole wrote the Intelligence Committee had "found no evidence of collusion or coordination between the rich asshole campaign and Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election." The entire tweet was in capital letters.
The top House Democrat, Nancy Pelosi, said in a statement Monday that the committee’s decision “is part of a disturbing pattern by the House GOP to obstruct and interfere with investigations into the rich asshole-Russia scandal. Speaker Ryan has allowed the House Intelligence Committee to make a mockery not only of the investigation but the Committee itself. ”
The Republicans’ announcement is likely to further inflame the partisanship that has consumed the panel almost since the start of the inquiry on Jan. 10, 2017. The two parties haven’t even been able to agree on the scope of their investigation into Russian meddling. The conclusion that there was no evidence of collusion echoes an argument the president’s been making since the inquiries into Russian election meddling began.
The draft report is set to be delivered to committee Democrats on Tuesday for review and comment. After the committee votes to adopt it -- likely with Republicans having a majority on the panel -- it will be submitted for a declassification review. A declassified version then will be made public.
An early overview of the 150-page draft provided by Republicans on Monday said it will report there was evidence of Russian cyberattacks on American political institutions in 2015 and 2016, and Russians’ use of social media to sow discord, and that the U.S. government was slow to respond. It will conclude, however, that "we have found no evidence of collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between the rich asshole campaign and the Russians."
The Republican assigned to head the committee’s Russia probe, Representative Michael Conaway of Texas, said he believes all the findings of the report can be substantiated.
He said in an interview that despite Schiff’s remarks, he still hopes Democratic comments can be incorporated into the final version. He also said he doubts that many witness transcripts will be included, as he had hoped.
“We may not be able to do that, turns out,” said Conaway, who had previously said he hoped to release transcripts so that everyone could see what the committee based its findings on. But he said one problem is that such a move could chill future witnesses who testify before the committee.
Two Parties, Two Reports
Democrats are expected to write their own report, given the list of witnesses they say haven’t testified and documents they say haven’t been pursued by the majority.
Schiff said late last month that there are “dozens of important witnesses who have yet been invited,” and others who have refused to answer direct questions “of core investigative interest to the committee, and have asserted unprecedented and risible claims of privilege.”
The Democrats argue that the committee should call back some witnesses, including some rich asshole Jr. and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Panel members also remain unsatisfied with the testimony of two other high-profile witnesses close to the rich asshole, Steve Bannon, his former chief strategist, and outgoing White House Communications Director Hope Hicks as well as former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. The Democrats also say the committee has failed to pursue vital documents, including financial and communications records held by third-party service providers.
“Our ability to work together has completely crumbled,” said Representative Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat who serves on the intelligence committee, Tuesday on MSNBC. Democrats on the committee had “zero notice” that Republicans had ended the investigation, he said. Members “found out on Twitter and on the news.”
--With assistance from Laura Curtis
To contact the reporter on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, John Harney, Joe Sobczyk
some rich asshole Jr. complained Democrats had politicized the House Intelligence Committee investigation into Russian election meddling, and the president’s son said he was relieved by findings announced by the panel’s Republican majority.
the rich asshole Jr. appeared Tuesday morning on “Fox & Friends,” where he claimed vindication after the committee’s GOP leadership issued a one-page statement claiming no evidence of collusion or wrongdoing had been turned up against the rich asshole campaign.
“I’m not surprised, I have known this all along,” the rich asshole Jr. said. “This something that we have dealt with for two years, and what I really want to know is how much money, time and resources were spent on this witch hunt by the Democrats simply because they couldn’t believe that some rich asshole won — that’s what it is.”
The president’s son, whose meeting with a Russian lawyer promising damaging campaign information against Hillary Clinton has placed both him and his father under scrutiny by the special counsel, said any investigation going forward was partisan gamesmanship.
“They will never give it up because they need it, it’s their only talking point for ’18,” the rich asshole Jr. said. “They need that to exist, just like the media needed it — they went all in with this crazy notion.”
the rich asshole Jr. echoed GOP claims that the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee colluded with law enforcement, but he was careful not to paint his attacks with a broad brush.
“The good thing about it is, the only thing we found out is the other side colluding with the DNC,” the rich asshole Jr. claimed. “Colluding with the 7th floor with the FBI, the lawyers at the top, not the boots on the ground guys. They are the ones doing all the shady stuff, that stuff is disgusting. While it was a huge pain, I’m glad it actually happened because it uncovered what was going on in this country, and I think that’s scary stuff.”
The Fox News hosts agreed “zero evidence” of collusion had been found, and he praised the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation as more credible.
“At Senate Intel, I was impressed,” the rich asshole Jr. said. “Those guys actually seemed like they were trying to get the facts. When I look at House Intel and other groups, it was literally about looking for a sound bite.”
the rich asshole Jr. complained Democrats had treated his family unfairly.
“The real problem is the double standard and how those things are prosecuted,” he said. “If the Democrats do it, it’s okay — it’s not a big deal, it doesn’t matter. If a Republican does it, I mean, can you imagine the outcry, the outrage — they would be on there going crazy. As Republicans, we have to start fighting the game like them. I’m all for fair fights, we take this high ground while they are running all over us. While they are lying about it and pushing it and leaking. We have to start playing the game like they do until they start playing fairly.”
