White House intensifies effort to install Pentagon personnel seen as loyal to Trump [View all]
The White House is intensifying an effort to hire Pentagon personnel with an undisputed allegiance to President Trump at a moment when his relationship with Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper has become strained, current and former officials said.
The changes in mid-level leadership are poised to create a more avowedly political Defense Department and could erode the influence of Esper, who spoke out against Trump’s proposed deployment of active-duty troops to quell unrest in U.S. cities after the killing of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police.
White House officials are now redoubling efforts as Trump complains to aides that he has never had a defense secretary who is fully aligned with his foreign policy views and accuses Pentagon officials of trying to undermine him, according to a senior administration official.
The selection of candidates with connections to the president or White House is a sign of an increasingly assertive approach to personnel matters across the administration, with Trump purging confirmed and acting inspectors general at five Cabinet agencies, sending more-provocative nominees to the Senate for confirmation and sidelining officials he saw as betraying him during the impeachment process.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/white-house-intensifies-effort-to-install-pentagon-personnel-seen-as-loyal-to-trump/2020/06/25/1bfeee3a-9f86-11ea-9d96-c3f7c755fd6e_story.html
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