Ten Reasons Why Elliott Abrams Would Make a Dreadful Deputy Secretary of State

[Judi Lynn]

FEBRUARY 14, 2017
by MEDEA BENJAMIN


Donald Trump will soon announce his pick for deputy Secretary of State. The leading contender appears to be Elliott Abrams, despite Abrams having been an outspoken advocate of the #NeverTrump crowd and calling Trump unfit for the office.

Abrams, a neocon hawk, would be one more disastrous addition to Team Trump. In his prior positions under Reagan and George W. Bush, he supported the most thuggish regimes and covered up the human rights violations of US government allies. A crook who was convicted of lying to Congress, his policy decisions have left death, destruction and deceit in their wake.

1. Abrams is infamous for his involvement in the nefarious Iran-Contra scandal, the secret and illegal scam in the 1980s to siphon profits from Iranian weapons sales to support the right-wing Contra rebels trying to overthrow the Sandinista government. Despite the fact that supplying weapons to the Contras was expressly prohibited by Congress, Abrams pushed the scheme and when caught, lied to Congress. Abrams pleaded guilty in 1991 to withholding information from Congress. He was later pardoned by President Bush in 1992 in order to prevent further investigation into the scandal, which could potentially have been traced back to the president himself.

2. Abrams was a hardline believer in taking “whatever means necessary” to win the Cold War. As Reagan’s Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs from 1981-1985, he loudly condemned Soviet human rights violations while ignoring the violent actions of US allies, such as the apartheid regime in South Africa. This ideological stance, along with his firm support for U.S. military interventions and “nation-building”, later garnered him the position of George W. Bush’s Deputy National Security Adviser in order to “spread democracy” abroad.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/02/14/ten-reasons-why-elliott-abrams-would-make-a-dreadful-deputy-secretary-of-state/

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Everyone else, including Abrams, has been saying for days he was rejected

(CNN)Elliott Abrams, who served Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, will not get the No. 2 job at the State Department, three Republican sources told CNN.

But Abrams was nixed from the list of contenders after President Donald Trump learned of Abrams' biting criticism last May of his fitness to become president, the Republican sources said.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/10/politics/elliott-abrams-trump-state-department-tillerson/

Elliott Abrams, who served under both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, was being considered for the job of Deputy Secretary of State in the Trump administration, but was passed over because, according to CNN, President Trump became aware of past criticisms Abrams had of him.
...
Abrams appeared on CNN tonight to discuss the matter with Erin Burnett. He provided some insight into the meeting he had with Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and said he was ready to address his past criticisms of the president.

And on the subject of who in the White House might have tanked his chances, he said, “The only person on the White House staff that I know who was opposed to my being hired was Steve Bannon, so that’s my guess. It’s a guess.”

Abrams said he was perfectly willing to serve despite those past criticisms, because as an American he wants the president to succeed, but does think it would be “destructive” for Trump to go back into GOP primary mode in deciding who serves in his government.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/elliott-abrams-bannon-may-be-why-i-was-passed-over-for-state-dept-position/