New Veterans Affairs chief plans to reassign, sideline Trump loyalists now in power
Robert Wilkie is set to be sworn in as President Trump’s Veterans Affairs secretary on Monday. (Carolyn Kaster/AP) by Lisa Rein July 29 at 7:00 AM Email the author
In one of his first acts as President Trump’s Veterans Affairs secretary, Robert Wilkie intends to reassign several high-ranking political appointees at the center of the agency’s ongoing morale crisis and staffing exodus, according to three people familiar with his plans.
Wilkie, who will be sworn in Monday, wants to form his own leadership team, these people say, and to ease lawmakers’ continued concern that VA, historically a nonpartisan corner of the government, has become highly politicized. He discussed the proposed personnel moves with Trump in recent days aboard Air Force One, while en route to a veterans convention in Kansas City, Mo., said an official close to the White House who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
Announcements could come as soon as this week, pending approval from the White House Personnel Office.
Carla Gleason, a spokeswoman for Wilkie, declined to comment on specific reassignments, saying in an email this past week that “any leadership changes will be announced next week.” VA officials referred a request for comment to the White House press office, which did not respond.
John Hoellwarth, communications director for AMVETS, an advocacy group with more than 250,000 members, praised Wilkie for acting quickly to ensure that VA “is driven by a desire to serve veterans first.”
“Over the last year at VA, widely publicized internal political turmoil among senior officials has gotten in the way of serving veterans,” Hoellwarth said, “and it seems like Wilkie is acting decisively to stamp that out on his watch.”
The changes would sideline much of VA’s interim leadership team under acting secretary Peter O’Rourke, who drew unfavorable reviews from lawmakers in both political parties following a dispute with the agency’s inspector general and a Washington Post report that highlighted O’Rourke’s efforts to purge civil servants and some political appointees whom he and others installed by Trump deemed unsupportive of the president’s agenda.
O’Rourke, a former Trump campaign worker, will be reassigned to a less visible role overseeing a new office focused on improving VA operations, according to people familiar with Wilkie’s plans. The position does not require Senate confirmation.
O’Rourke and others who face reassignment have told Congress they were trying to improve the effectiveness of an agency that has long struggled to provide timely health care and benefits to veterans, and to root out poor performers. Instead, they have estranged many career staffers who serve veterans day-to-day.
Wilkie, who oversaw military personnel policy at the Pentagon before Trump tapped him to lead VA, is expected to name Pamela Powers his chief of staff, according to people familiar with Wilkie’s plans. She has filled that role for him at the Defense Department.
VA’s general counsel, James Byrne, a Trump appointee, is expected be named acting deputy secretary. The role has been vacant since Thomas Bowman retired in June. Bowman was isolated by O’Rourke and the other appointees, who viewed him as too moderate.
[White House targets VA’s deputy secretary as ‘a warning shot’ to agency’s leader]
Wilkie will face multiple challenges leading VA, which has lacked a permanent leader since Trump fired former secretary David Shulkin in March amid a highly publicized power struggle between Shulkin and O’Rourke and his team.
VA has numerous leadership vacancies. There is no permanent deputy secretary, the department’s No. 2 leadership post; there is no undersecretary for VA’s health system, the largest in the country; there is no deputy undersecretary for health; there is no assistant secretary for information technology. Additionally, dozens of senior-level staff have departed VA amid the turmoil that has marked the past six months, leaving numerous vacancies.
Other expected reassignments include Jacquelyn Hayes-Byrd, VA’s deputy chief of staff, who has served as acting chief of staff since May and carried out the reassignments of many civil servants. Hayes-Byrd may take an acting role in human resources, according to two people familiar with Wilkie’s thinking.
John Ullyot, VA’s assistant secretary for public and intergovernmental affairs, will likely be reassigned to a role running internal communications, these people said. Ullyot, a former Senate aide, openly clashed with Shulkin and left VA on paid leave for several weeks at the end of Shulkin’s tenure, returning after the secretary’s firing.
VA press secretary Curt Cashour, a former Capitol Hill aide who has clashed with reporters, is said to be searching for another job in the Trump administration, according to people familiar with the matter.
Camilo Sandoval, acting chief information officer and the former director of data operations for Trump’s campaign — who received poor reviews from lawmakers on his progress overseeing a $16 billion project to modernize VA’s electronic health records system — is expected to leave the administration in coming months, according to a person familiar with his plans.
After The Post’s report revealed that O’Rourke had taken aggressive steps to sideline or reassign employees who were perceived to be disloyal, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) moved quickly to get Wilkie in place. Sen. Jon Tester (Mont.), the top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, and seven other Senate Democrats have called for an investigation into political interference in VA’s “transparency processes.”
Three House Democrats this month called on the Justice Department to investigate whether O’Rourke lied during congressional testimony related to a VA inspector general investigation of the agency’s Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection.
During Wilkie’s confirmation hearing in June, Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) told the nominee that sinking morale at VA would be Wilkie’s biggest challenge. According to data compiled by the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, more than 26,000 full-time employees left VA last year, with most quitting or retiring.
Michael Cohen gave a closed-door testimony to the House Intelligence committee last October. Committee member Rep. Jim Himes tells Katy Tur that the testimony Cohen would give today would be quite different from the one he gave a year ago in the Russia investigation, now that he seems to have shifted his loyalty away from the President. Jul.25.2018
"The White House announces Trump is looking to revoke the security clearances of former officials former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI Director James Comey, former national security adviser Susan Rice, former deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and former National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden. Ari Melber breaks down how these former officials are also likely to be key witnesses in Special Counsel Mueller’s Russian investigation, while former RNC Chair Michael Steele tells “The Beat” President Trump is also "pissed because these folks are out there talking smack about what he's doing at the White House". "
Today James Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Susan Rice, Andrew McCabe and Michael Hayden are all no longer government employees since January of 2017, therefore their security clearances should be revoked.
Further, there is adequate proof that Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Rice and McCabe all lied under oath.
Obama should fire John Brennan July 31, 2014
In March, at the Council on Foreign Relations, CIA Director John Brennan was asked by NBC’s Andrea Mitchell whether the CIA had illegally accessed Senate Intelligence Committee staff computers “to thwart an investigation by the committee into” the agency’s past interrogation techniques. The accusation had been made earlier that day by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who said the CIA had “violated the separation-of-powers principles embodied in the United States Constitution.” Brennan answered:
As far as the allegations of, you know, CIA hacking into, you know, Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth. I mean, we wouldn’t do that. I mean, that’s — that’s just beyond the — you know, the scope of reason in terms of what we would do. {…}
And, you know, when the facts come out on this, I think a lot of people who are claiming that there has been this tremendous sort of spying and monitoring and hacking will be proved wrong.
"Trump Denies Bombshell Claim That He Approved Trump Tower Meeting | The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBC"
Adele M. Stan May 17, 2017
If Democrats are smart, they’ll explore the vice president’s role during the transition.
(Photo: AP/Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
Vice President Mike Pence leaves the Senate chamber on May 10, 2017.
On December 1, former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the FBI regarding conversations with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, and vowed to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Mueller's indictment has also fueled speculation about the role played by other senior White House officials with regard to Russia, including Vice President Mike Pence, who on January 15 denied that Flynn's conversations with Kislyak had taken place. The Prospect reprises Stan’s prescient column suggesting that Democrats take a closer look at the vice president’s role during the presidential transition.
If Donald J. Trump loses his grip on the presidency, his logical replacement will be Vice President Mike Pence, the religious-right stalwart and favorite of the billionaire Koch brothers. Once in the White House, Pence may not be so easy to dislodge, given the propensity of the right-wing evangelical base of the Republican Party to turn out to the polls in large numbers.
Steve Schmidt: Titanic Fraud Pence Shows Donald Trump Slobbering Servility | The 11th Hour | MSNBC
MSNBC Published on May 10, 2018
Responding to a piece from conservative columnist George Will criticizing Vice President Mike Pence, veteran GOP strategist Steve Schmidt excoriated Pence for his ‘slobbering servility’ calling him Trump’s most “obsequious cultist.’
See Schmidt say his words in the meme below in that video. Word for word except for the last two sentences, which says, most certainly, they would be Schmidt's too.
Another solid nail in the coffin of the Libertarian/&others. myth that "all politicians are the same."
What Does Michael Cohen Stand To Gain From New Revelation? | Morning Joe | MSNBC
MSNBC Published on Jul 27, 2018
Michael Cohen asserts that President Trump knew in advance about a meeting at Trump Tower between his son and a Russian lawyer, in contradiction to Trump Jr.'s congressional testimony in May 2017, a source tells NBC News.
Trump and Son at Legal Risk If Found Lying About Russia Meeting
Donald Trump, Jr. (R) greets his father Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump during the town hall debate at Washington University on October 9, 2016 in St Louis, Missouri. Rick Wilking—Pool/Getty Images
By Bloomberg July 28, 2018
President Donald Trump faces potential legal and political danger if it’s proven he knew in advance about a meeting his son and campaign aides had with Russians said to be promising dirt on Hillary Clinton, according to former federal prosecutors.
The allegation reportedly made by Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen adds an explosive twist to the famous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower, which has become a focus of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether anyone in Trump’s campaign conspired with Russia to interfere in the last U.S. presidential election.
Trump and his current lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, deny that Trump knew about the meeting beforehand and say Cohen is lying. “I did NOT know of the meeting with my son, Don jr.,” the president tweeted Friday morning. “Sounds to me like someone is trying to make up stories in order to get himself out of an unrelated jam.”
Trump has said he didn’t know about the Trump Tower meeting until a year later, when he dictated a statement on behalf of his son that the discussion was primarily about a dispute over adoptions of Russian children. That turned out to be misleading at best after revelations that the meeting’s organizer had pledged damaging information from the Russians on Clinton but the participants ended up discussing relief from U.S. sanctions on Russia.
While there’s no crime in lying to the public, Trump could face fresh legal jeopardy in the cases Mueller is building alleging conspiracy with Russia to interfere in the election and on efforts to obstruct his investigation, said Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor who is now a partner at the Thompson Coburn LLP law firm in Chicago.
‘Many Different Steps’
“Don’t think of crimes as something committed at a specific time and date,” Mariotti said. “Typically a white-collar crime is something that happens over a long period of time and it involves many different steps.”
Donald Trump Jr. could face charges of lying to Congress if Cohen’s allegation is proven true, as he testified under oath that his father didn’t know about the meeting.
Cohen is ready to testify that he and others were present when Trump was informed of an offer of material detrimental to Clinton ahead of the June 2016 meeting, CNN said Thursday, citing people with knowledge of the matter. Adding an element of mystery about the unnamed sources, Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, said in a a statement to MSNBC, “I have to wonder why the Trump people would put that out. It was not from us.”
Cohen is under investigation by the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, and FBI agents raided his office, home and hotel room in April. In an interview on CNN Thursday night, Giuliani labeled Cohen a “pathological liar.”
That raises an important question about Cohen’s claims: Who has more credibility, the president, or his former lawyer?
“I would not place my faith in Michael Cohen’s credibility,” said Mimi Rocah, a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan. “The reason prosecutors win so many convictions is that they never rely on just one person.”
“You need other evidence,” she said. “Cohen’s claim may be a smoking gun, but how do you back that up? You look at the surrounding evidence and circumstances. You see Trump saying, around the same day as the meeting, we’ll have a major speech to discuss the Clintons. You look at the fact that he had a long-standing relationship with the Agalarovs, who helped set up the meeting.”
Prosecutors also ask juries to use their common sense, Rocah said. “Does it make sense that Trump knew about the meeting? You look at all the circumstances together and use your common sense.”
Should Cohen’s claims turn out to be true, Rocah agreed that Trump could have legal exposure.
“If Trump knew in advance that the Russians had stolen information, and understood its importance, that puts him at risk, in legal jeopardy, of being part of the conspiracy that the Russians have been charged with to defraud the U.S.,” she said.
Collusion, Obstruction
There may be an obstruction charge as well, said Harry Sandick, a former federal prosecutor now at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler. If Cohen’s reported version is correct, “it would make it very hard for Trump to say there was no collusion,’ he said. “There would also be a potential obstruction charge, because he tried to prevent prosecutors from knowing what happened.”
While the most serious potential criminal charges relate to conspiracy and obstruction of justice, there are lesser offenses too. It’s illegal to knowingly solicit political contributions from foreign nationals, and providing stolen emails could be viewed as an “in-kind” contribution. Enforcement of a violation depends on which agency would pursue it.
If it’s the Federal Election Commission, it’s a civil matter, with the biggest penalty being a fine. The Justice Department can bring criminal charges for willful violations of federal election law, though its track record of winning convictions has been mixed. The maximum sentence for violating election laws is five years’ imprisonment, depending on the offense.
If Cohen testifies that Trump lied repeatedly and often about his knowledge of the Trump Tower meeting, that could put Trump Jr. in legal jeopardy.
The president’s son testified before Congress that he didn’t tell his father, according to a transcript released by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“Did you inform your father about the meeting or the underlying offer prior to the meeting?” Trump Jr. was asked. “No, I did not,” he answered.
‘Blocked’ Number
Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, though, said Trump Jr. was in contact with a “blocked” number while he was in the midst of arranging the Trump Tower meeting with a Russian contact, Emin Agalarov. When asked about that, the younger Trump testified he didn’t know whose blocked number that was.
Trump’s primary residence at the time — Trump Tower — had a blocked number, according to separate testimony to the committee from former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
Lying to Congress is a crime punishable by as much as five years in prison.
Cohen could face legal trouble of his own if he didn’t tell the House and Senate Intelligence committees the truth when he was interviewed in their Russia probes.
The larger problem for the president is political. His own long-time attorney portraying him as a liar about collusion with Russia would undercut the president’s narrative that the Russia investigation is a “witch hunt” concocted by Democrats as an excuse for losing the presidential election.
With Democrats now favored by many analysts to win back the House of Representatives, Cohen’s reported allegations could move the needle closer to impeachment — a possibility that Democratic leaders have downplayed so far — and at minimum will reinvigorate efforts to investigate what happened.
To date, the key figures in the Trump Tower meeting have all escaped the bright lights of a public hearing, while top Republicans have lately trained much of their fire on the Justice Department, not Trump.
They can all expect very different treatment if Democrats are holding the gavel next year.
“If recent reports are true that President Trump knew in advance about the 2016 Trump Tower meeting, it would suggest that Donald Trump Jr. may have misled Judiciary Committee staff about the meeting when he was interviewed last fall,” Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Friday in a statement. “It further demonstrates the need to bring him before the committee to answer our questions.”
Bannon also speculated that Trump Jr had involved his father in the meeting. “The chance that Don Jr did not walk these jumos up to his father’s office on the twenty-sixth floor is zero.”
Paul Manafort’s Defense Team Opens Trial by Blaming Associates
"Trump Denies Bombshell Claim That He Approved Trump Tower Meeting | The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBC"
-- Insert: The Freedom Caucus and Trump
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By SHARON LaFRANIERE and EMILY BAUMGAERTNERUPDATED 2:17 PM
Protesters were outside as Paul Manafort’s trial began in Alexandria, Va., on Tuesday. Credit Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Paul Manafort’s trial on financial fraud charges opened on Tuesday with an effort by his defense team to deflect blame to the government’s star witness in the case, Rick Gates, Mr. Manafort’s longtime political consulting partner.
The defense strategy pits the credibility of Mr. Manafort, a former campaign chairman for President Trump, against that of Mr. Gates, who has pleaded guilty to charges in the same case and is cooperating in the inquiry led by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. And it sets up a dramatic courtroom showdown between Mr. Gates, who is scheduled to take the stand for the prosecution, and Mr. Manafort, who worked closely with him in aiding pro-Russia politicians in Ukraine for a decade and also in 2016 on Mr. Trump’s campaign.
The trial, over charges that Mr. Manafort hid tens of millions of dollars he received for his work in Ukraine and then engaged in bank fraud when those funds dried up, got underway at a rapid clip.
A jury of six men and six women was seated hours after the proceedings began in United States District Court in Alexandria, Va. By midafternoon, the prosecutors and the defense team were making their opening statements, laying out the contours of the case they intend to make to the jury.
In his opening statement, Thomas Zehnle, one of Mr. Manafort’s five defense lawyers, said Mr. Gates embezzled millions from Mr. Manafort and then, fearing prison time for his own misdeeds, turned on him under pressure from Mr. Mueller.
“Rick Gates is their foundation,” Mr. Zehnle said.
Even though Mr. Gates has pleaded guilty to lying to the federal authorities and conspiracy to engage in financial fraud, Mr. Zehnle said, “the government is going to ask you to trust him.”
The trial is the first stemming from charges brought by Mr. Mueller in his investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. Although the charges against Mr. Manafort involve neither Mr. Trump nor allegations of collusion with Russia, the trial is the first courtroom test of Mr. Mueller’s work and the likelihood of it being focused on two former senior Trump advisers savaging each others’ honesty will only draw more attention to it. Mr. Gates was Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman under Mr. Manafort, and after Mr. Manafort was forced out in August 2016 over revelations about his Ukraine work.
He is one of about 35 prosecution witnesses scheduled to testify about what the government calls a shrewdly crafted multiyear scheme by Mr. Manafort to evade taxes on $15 million in income he earned while working to promote the political fortunes of Viktor F. Yanukovych, a former leader of Ukraine.
Uzo Asonye, an assistant United States attorney on the prosecution’s team, told the jury that Mr. Yanukovych was Mr. Manafort’s “golden goose” and that Ukrainian oligarchs who ran entire industries in Ukraine paid Mr. Manafort $60 million over a decade to bolster Mr. Yanukovych’s fortunes.
Mr. Manafort hid most of his income, and roped bookkeepers, tax accountants and bank officials into his scheme “in order to get and keep money,” Mr. Asonye said. “He even lied about where he was living.”
Although it was only the first day of what is expected to be a three-week trial, it seemed clear that the central argument would be whether Mr. Manafort directed the various fraudulent financial schemes, or was duped or directed by others, including Mr. Gates.
Mr. Manafort is the first American charged in the inquiry by the special counsel whose case is going to trial. Credit Alexandria Sheriff's Office
Mr. Zehnle said Mr. Manafort was too busy as a highly paid political consultant working overseas to keep track of his finances, and relied on a staff of professionals, including Mr. Gates.
“Mr. Gates was the point man,” he said.
If Mr. Manafort’s payments for his Ukraine work were made in an unorthodox fashion through accounts in Cyprus, he said, it was because his financial patrons insisted that is how he should be paid, not because Mr. Manafort was trying to hide his income.
“That is the way the client wanted it to be done,” he told the jurors. “His Ukrainian patrons set up the accounts, not Paul Manafort.”
But the prosecutors said Mr. Manafort deliberately hid the money he made so he could indulge his taste for luxury, paying millions in cash for homes in the United States, driving a Mercedes-Benz convertible and splurging on purchases like a $21,000 watch and a $15,000 jacket made from an ostrich.
“He got whatever he wanted,” Mr. Asonye said. “His homes, his renovations, his jewelry, his clothing.”
When his Ukrainian patrons quit paying, he said, Mr. Manafort filed false documents with banks to keep up his cash flow. “All of this was willful,” he said.
Mr. Manafort, in a black suit with a silver tie, took an active part in his defense. He consulted with his lawyers during the selection of the jurors, putting on his glasses to pore over his notes.
His defense team was clearly wary of how the jurors would respond to tales of their client’s extravagant spending, and argued that he had earned his wealth through his talents as a political consultant.
“Paul Manafort travels in circles that most people would never know,” his lawyer, Mr. Zehnle, said. “He lived a lifestyle that most people can only dream of.”
Thomas A. Devine, a Democratic political consultant who was hired by Mr. Manafort to develop media strategy for Mr. Yanukovych, was the only witness to testify. Called by the prosecution, he said that Mr. Manafort ran an “incredible” operation to resurrect Mr. Yanukovych’s political career. Written off as a political loser in 2005, Mr. Yanukovych was elected president of Ukraine in 2010, then ousted in 2014 amid a political uprising. Mr. Devine, known as Tad, worked for Bernie Sanders as his chief strategist in the 2016 election.
Mr. Manafort’s lawyers tried to scrutinize Mr. Devine’s politics — possibly seeking to show that he was biased against Republicans like Mr. Manafort. Prosecutors objected, arguing that the judge had ordered that political references be left out of the trial.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly suggested that he was surprised at how harshly Mr. Manafort had been treated. In an interview with Fox News two weeks ago, he said the indictments against his former aides, including Mr. Manafort, were a “very sad thing for our country.”
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