Trump's shadow national security council is blocking Gen. Mattis's influence

[highplainsdem]

From "Inside Trump's shadow national security council" (Josh Rogin, WaPo, this morning):


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2017/01/19/inside-trumps-shadow-national-security-council/

When Trump’s Cabinet members are confirmed and their staffs are in place, heads of national security departments and agencies could be in a position to exert great influence. But for now, incoming chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, senior adviser Jared Kushner and White House chief of staff Reince Priebus comprise an informal council that sits atop the Trump transition team’s executive committee and has the final say on national security personnel appointments. No major decision can go forward without their sign-off.

-snip-

Mattis and the Trump team have already clashed over Pentagon staffing, and consequently most Defense Department senior official positions remain unfilled. Transition officials told me that Mattis requested that almost two dozen Pentagon political appointees be allowed to stay on during the first months of the Trump administration because he did not want the Pentagon to be caught flat-footed in case of an early emergency.

The Trump transition team pushed back and allowed Mattis to retain only a half-dozen top officials, including Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work. On Tuesday, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) wrote a letter to the Trump transition team urging them to allow senior officials in sensitive national security posts to stay on until their replacements are nominated and confirmed.

“I understand that new administrations, regardless of political party, bring new management and personnel, but the United States faces an increasing number of global threats,” he wrote. “We simply cannot afford to allow national security positions to effectively run on ‘auto-pilot.’ The responsibilities are too important.”

Mattis and the Trump team in New York also clashed over Mattis’s desire to appoint Pentagon officials who did not support Trump during the GOP primary. The head of Defense Department personnel for the transition team, John P. Gallagher, will no longer be in charge of that portfolio when the transition team becomes the White House staff after Friday’s inauguration.

Three transition officials told me that Mira Ricardel, who was the head of the transition’s Pentagon landing team, will take over as the White House lead official for Defense Department personnel appointments. There was a perception that Gallagher, a former senior advisor to several top generals, was too close to Mattis. Ricardel is viewed by the Trump leadership in New York as more attuned to the political interests of Trump, the officials said.

Ricardel’s portfolio will also include Veterans Affairs and parts of the intelligence community. Mattis and Ricardel met Tuesday in the Trump transition office in Washington to discuss service secretaries and other senior Pentagon appointments. David McCormick, who was slated to be Mattis’s deputy, took himself out of the running, resetting the search for that position as well.

-snip-

This is particularly bad news about Mattis having such limited influence already. A lot of people have been hoping he'd be able to exert a moderating influence on Trump and the ideologues and/or incompetents around him.

[vlyons]

1. Maybe Mattis will be the first one to resign?

Trump will give Mattis lots of responsibility, but little authority. That is an untenable position.

[highplainsdem]

3. Agree. It's looking as if Trump wanted Mattis mainly for Mattis's tough image.

Trump simply wanted to use that image.

It's almost certain that Mattis is already weighing his frustration at the limitations placed on him, and his anger at being used for his image, against whatever small chance there still is that he can exert some good influence on Trump and the very dangerous people around him.

But if people are already being passed over because Team Trump doesn't want anyone who's possibly more loyal to Mattis than to Trump...

It was obvious from the beginning that Mattis would be at odds with Flynn and other ideologues around Trump, but I was still holding on to a shred of hope that Trump might listen to Mattis more. If this article is correct, that hope was in vain.

[randr]

2. Mattis will be the card that falls and brings the whole house down.

[Thrill]

4. Of course the only sane person in the cabinet

Will have little influence

[exboyfil]

5. And he should not be SecDef

The cooling off law is a very good idea. Too bad he is not NSA instead of Flynn.

[edhopper]

6. It's like the GWBush team

sidelining Powell.

I expected the one almost sane voice would get drowned out.

[highplainsdem]

8. Good comparison.

[fishwax]

7. Mattison was critical of a lot of Trump's positions last year. I'm curious

what Mattison hopes to get out of the position. Does he want/expect to be able to minimize the damage? How much will he put up with being limited to a kind of symbolic power? (If elements of the darkest timeline come to pass, will he provide a base of opposition from within the administration?)

[Thrill]

9. I'm curious to see how long this so called no nonsense General

is going to let asswhipes like Bannon tell him what he can do and can't do.