Inside a Trump-era purge of military scientists at a legendary think tank

[Yonnie3]

A Reuters Special Report
7/30/19 - by Charles Levinson

They’re members of a prestigious academic panel with top-secret clearances who’ve advised the Pentagon on some of America’s most vexing national security issues since the Cold War. Over 60 years, they’ve won 11 Nobel prizes and conducted hundreds of government studies.

The advisory group, known as Jason, is a team of some 60 of America’s top physicists and scientists who spend each summer in La Jolla, California, conducting studies commissioned by the Pentagon and other U.S. government agencies.

On March 28, Trump appointee Michael Griffin – the Pentagon’s chief technology officer – unexpectedly moved to terminate the group.

Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, objected, telling Griffin’s office the scientists were crucial for keeping America’s nuclear stockpile secure, according to an NNSA official and others affiliated with the Jason program. Gordon-Hagerty’s agency offered to take responsibility for the program. She only needed Griffin’s signature to make it happen.

Griffin refused.

<snip>

Full article at https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-trump-science/

[vlyons]

1. This is the scariest thing about Trump

OK, I get that he is a greedy vile SOB, who will do anything to enrich himself and his loyal grifters. But to dismiss science ??? To throw science away as unimportant, inconvenient ???

[Yonnie3]

2. It is likely more than that,

as if discarding science wasn't enough.

A quote in the article

“The pattern of resistance that has been directed at independent science advisors suggests that it is their independence that is unwanted.”
Steve Aftergood, government secrecy specialist with the Federation of American Scientists

They need doubleplusgood advice only of their choosing.

[dalton99a]

3. To save $8 million.

A day after Griffin moved to axe Jason, a 35-word blurb in the Federal Register announced the end of two other independent scientific boards, including the Navy Research Advisory Committee, which had advised the Navy and Marine Corps for 73 years.

The efforts to kill the scientific panels show how the Trump administration’s crackdown on the role of independent science in the U.S. government is reaching into areas long thought immune from political influence.

“These are institutions of great technical expertise,” said Sherri W. Goodman, a former member of the International Security Advisory Board, a State Department panel suspended shortly after Trump took office. “They are great repositories of national expertise and also scientific expertise that have helped keep America’s competitive edge militarily.”

The move will cut back on red tape and costs, Trump officials say. Jason, for instance, receives about $8 million in taxpayer financing a year.

[northoftheborder]

4. This is one of the most frightening reports I've heard.....

[vlyons]

5. But Putin and China are thrilled

nt

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

6. Intelligence is considered elitist in right wing world

[Dan]

7. Read the history books...

A few years prior to Germany’s invasion of Russia, information was fed to Stalin which implied that his military leaders couldn’t be trusted. Stalin purged thousands of his military leaders and subsequently when Germany attacked - Russia was not prepared.

Trump is disarming the United States.... think about it.