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White House Installs Trump Loyalists Into Pentagon Board Roles

BY December 4, 2020

Spite is a terrible motivator, and no one is more spiteful in the face of an embarrassing loss than Donald Trump. Known for his vindictiveness as soon as he catches even the smallest whiff of criticism or disloyalty, Trump has fired White House staff via Twitter on more than one occasion. It’s this kind of petty behavior that has created a sense of fear during his lone term in office, but he’s really turning things up to eleven during his lame duck period. Trump is scorching all of the earth he can to make sure Joe Biden has the most difficult presidential transition in history.

With only 46 days remaining until Biden is sworn into office, Trump has taken steps to decimate the Pentagon and clean out the Defense Department, weakening America even further on the world stage. The White House announced Friday that they had removed nine members of the Pentagon’s Defense Business Board and installed people loyal to Trump in their place, including presidential allies Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie.

[Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]
The Defense Business Board is made up of more than a dozen industry and academic leaders who volunteer to provide independent business advice to Pentagon leadership and are appointed by top Pentagon leaders. The board has completed reviews of defense agencies and field activities, along with a study of using data analytics in the private sector and how it applies to DoD. The group also recommended disestablishing the position of chief management officer and putting a new alternative in place, which this week was voted into the final National Defense Authorization Act.

The firings came as a shock to the board members, who had not received any negative feedback or warning prior to their termination. One former board member lamented the move, noting that the board “has never been political, ever.”

Besides Lewandowski and Bossie, the other new members are Henry Dreifus, Robert McMahon, Cory Mills, Bill Bruner, Christopher Shank, Joseph Schmidt, Keary Miller, Allen Weh, and Earl Matthews. Lewandowski was Trump’s first campaign manager in 2016 and this year was a senior adviser to the campaign, where he traveled to various states to promote its legal challenges to the election results. Bossie was Trump’s deputy campaign manager in 2016 and more recently was tapped to lead the effort to contest the election. Mills is an Army veteran and on Twitter, calls himself a “Newsmax insider,” a reference to one of Trump’s preferred TV channels.

The announcement was met with typical scrutiny, with people left wondering why these changes were being made at this late stage.

 



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