Bigger than Vindman: Trump scrubs 70 Obama holdovers from NSC

President Trump is making good on his promises to “drain the swamp” and cut Obama-era holdovers from his staffs, especially the critical and recently controversial National Security Council. Officials confirmed that Trump and national security adviser Robert O’Brien have cut 70 positions inherited from former President Barack Obama, who had fattened the staff to 200. Many were loaners from other agencies and have been sent back. Others left government work. The NSC, which is the president’s personal staff, was rocked when a “whistleblower” leveled charges that led to Trump’s impeachment.

Last week, one key official who testified against Trump at a House hearing on the Ukraine affair that led to impeachment was sent packing. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman was returned to the Pentagon. His twin brother Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman was also given the boot. Trump had expressed displeasure that Alexander Vindman had testified against him when the Ukraine specialist said he did not like the phone conversation between the president and a newly elected president of Ukraine. Since entering the White House, Trump has relied on staffs smaller than previous administrations and has noted how prior president’s had a much smaller NSC team.

O’Brien recently said that former President George W. Bush handled the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with 100 NSC aides, a model he is instituting. “This month, we will complete the right-sizing goal Ambassador O’Brien outlined in October, and in fact, may exceed that target by drawing down even more positions,” John Ullyot, the NSC’s senior director for strategic communications, told Secrets.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/bigger-than-vindman-

trump-scrubs-70-obama-holdovers-from-nsc

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1226154003551178752?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Schumer asks watchdogs to investigate whistleblower retaliation after Trump purges impeachment witnesses

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is imploring dozens of inspectors general to investigate whistleblower retaliation in the Trump administration after last week's purge of two impeachment witnesses. The New York Democrat plans to send letters Monday to 74 independent watchdogs, asking they look into the treatment of government whistleblowers following the removal of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman from the National Security Council and U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland's sudden recall from his post. Schumer argued that Trump’s decision to jettison Vindman and his identical twin brother Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman from the White House was “part of a dangerous, growing pattern of retaliation against those who report wrongdoing only to find themselves targeted by the President and subject to his wrath and vindictiveness.”

In his letter to the Defense Department’s acting Inspector General Glenn Fine, Schumer asked for documentation about when employees were last reminded of their protections as a whistleblower and demanded that Fine reassure Congress that future whistleblowers are protected when they come forward. “Without the courage of whistleblowers and the role of Inspectors General, the American people may never have known how the President abused his power in the Ukraine scandal,” Schumer wrote. “It is incumbent on you that whistleblowers … are protected for doing what we hope and expect those who serve our country will do when called: tell the truth.”

Trump ordered the removal of the Vindmans from the National Security Council, likely sending them back to roles within the Pentagon. Both of the brothers are still active duty in the military. The president claimed Alexander Vindman, who was an impeachment witness against Trump, had “problems with judgment” and needed to be removed. In his impeachment testimony, Vindman said he was told by his superiors to stay quiet about concerns he had related to Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine's president. Details about this conversation, in which Trump pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate his political rivals, first appeared in a whistleblower complaint that sparked impeachment proceedings. The identity of this whistleblower, known only to be a CIA analyst, is not publicly known, but Republican allies of the president have called for this person to come forward to answer for what they claim to be a sham impeachment. Trump was acquitted of two charges in the Senate on Wednesday. Sondland, also an impeachment witness, was recalled from his post as ambassador to the European Union on Friday. In his testimony, Sondland said there was no quid pro quo, but that he presumed Trump’s decision to withhold military aid from Ukraine was tied to the “anti-corruption statement” about the Bidens. Several Republican senators advocated that Trump not remove Sondland, but the president moved ahead with the decision anyway.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/schumer-asks-watchdogs-to-investigate-whistleblower-retaliation-after-trump-purges-impeachment-witnesses

CPAC organizer 'afraid' for Romney's safety if he attends annual conservative event

Trump loyalist Matt Schlapp claimed he would fear for Sen. Mitt Romney's safety if the senator attended this year's Conservative Political Action Conference. Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, talked about how the Utah Republican was “formally not invited” to attend the CPAC event during a recent interview on Full Court Press. He predicted Romney would not receive a warm welcome because of the senator's vote to convict President Trump during the Senate impeachment trial. “We won’t credential him as a conservative. I suppose if he wants to come as a nonconservative and debate an issue with us, maybe in the future we would have him come,” Schlapp said. “This year, I’d actually be afraid for his physical safety; people are so mad at him.” Schlapp argued that Romney should not be a part of the conference because he “lied so continuously to conservatives.” He added, “He’s a ‘use-em-and-lose-em’ kind of guy. When he needed a conservative like Donald Trump to endorse him in his Senate primary last time, he wanted him in. But then, when he gets the Senate job, he wants to distance himself from Trump.”

Romney has attended CPAC in the past, including in 2012, when he was the Republican Party’s nominee for president. Trump has been a staple at the conference over the past several years. He is set to deliver remarks at the conference later this month. Schlapp is the husband of Mercedes Schlapp, who worked as Trump's White House director of strategic communications before joining the president's reelection campaign last year.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/cpac-organizer-afraid-for-romneys-safety-if-he-attends-annual-conservative-event

Supreme Court picks a top issue for Democratic primary voters

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire — Republican fervor over the Supreme Court is catching on with Democrats, at least in New Hampshire, ahead of next week's primary election. On the campaign trail, the 2020 Democratic White House hopefuls have been repeatedly grilled on the country’s highest court as cases involving Obamacare, climate change, and abortion work their way through the clogs of the judicial system.

“Democrats have not done enough to get judges in, and the Republicans have been working really hard for years,” Joni Taub, 68, a Bedford art dealer, told the Washington Examiner at an event this week for Joe Biden's presidential bid. Norm Kushner, 68, described the Democrats of being “essentially asleep at the wheel.” “And when you’re appointed to a judgeship on the Supreme Court, or an appellate court, or a district court, it’s a lifetime appointment,” the retiree from Manchester said.

For Shannon Conner, 34, of Monterey, California, who was in the first-in-the-nation primary state as a political tourist, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s 2016 maneuvering to prevent former President Barack Obama from appointing Merrick Garland because it was an election year “politicized” the court and “raised the stakes” for her. “It was blatantly obvious that they were trying to ensure the Supreme Court justices were supportive of their agenda,” Conner said. “[The court] may see things on even the election, we don’t know what’s coming, Bush v. Gore in 2000, and with Trump, you can’t predict anything.” Yet Will Conner, 29, downplayed the need for lists of possible justices and judges, as the Federalist Society-approved one President Trump supplied during the 2016 cycle. “I think Trump had to come out with the list the last time around because he needed to prove himself as a conservative, whereas I don't know that that's going to be necessary on the Democratic side,” said Conner, a Santa Clara IT auditor told the Washington Examiner.

A focus on the Supreme Court and judges more broadly has long been a specialty on the Right. Believing the Left dominates the media, academic, and popular culture, the judiciary was one to have for conservatives to thrive. The 2017 and 2018 confirmations of Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, respectively, reflect that view. Fear of Trump nominations has been stoked by the 180 judges he has named during his time in office, 50 of whom sit on appeal courts. In contrast, Obama put that number of judges on circuit courts around the country over the course of his two terms.

A poll before the 2018 midterm cycle reported that the court was the top voting reason for 76% of respondents, 81% of whom were Democrats, after McConnell blocked Garland while elevating Kavanaugh, a Trump administration appointee, amid allegations of sexual misconduct while in high school. That Pew Research Center survey can be compared to a 2016 iteration that found the bench was the motivating factor for 65% of voters, 62% of whom were Democrats. And it appears that data is substantiated with anecdotal evidence in 2020 ahead of the New Hampshire contest on Feb. 11.

During the New Hampshire debate last Friday night, Biden, the former vice president, was asked whether he would require a pro-abortion litmus test for his pool of potential nominees, saying he would only appoint judges who believe in unenumerated rights. But the former Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, who oversaw hearings on the failed nominating of Robert Bork and the successful one for Justice Clarence Thomas, also said the discussion was moot unless Democrats take back the Senate in November.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/supreme-court-picks-a-top-issue-for-democratic-primary-voters

TV Host Jorge Ramos: ‘Trump Got His Wish. Mexico Is Now the Wall’

Univision newscaster Jorge Ramos says President Donald Trump has persuaded Mexico to become the border wall. Under the headline, “Trump Got His Wish. Mexico Is Now the Wall,” Ramos wrote in the February 7 issue of the New York Times: ''Mexico has effectively turned into an extension of Mr. Trump’s immigration police beyond American territory. And this is the case on multiple fronts: On the southern border with Guatemala, they prevent Central American migrants from coming into Mexico; on the northern one, they block those seeking entry to the United States from leaving. The decision of Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, also known as AMLO, to follow this approach is misguided. He should let migrants continue their journey north.'' Ramos’ admission is a startling declaration of defeat by a pro-migration, Mexican-born cheerleader.

Since 2015, Ramos has loudly denounced and ridiculed Trump — and Trump has aggressively pushed back. In August 2015, for example, Trump threw Ramos out of a press conference. Ramos’ NYT statement also undermines the jeers by his fellow progressives who claimed Trump would never get Mexico to pay for his wall. In 2015, as Trump announced his candidacy, Trump declared: I would build a great wall. And nobody builds walls better than me, believe me. And I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great great wall on our southern border and I’ll have Mexico pay for that wall. Trump’s concrete-and-metal fence is being funded by U.S. taxpayers — but Mexico is paying for its security forces to wall off many Latino migrants from getting near Trump’s border wall.

Moreover, Ramos gives Donald Trump all the credit for Mexico’s border-wall of security forces: Everything changed because of Donald Trump. By mid-2019, a number of Central American caravans were traveling across Mexico. The president, comparing them to an invasion, warned Mexico that they should do something to stop them, and that he would slap tariffs on all Mexican imports if it didn’t. Despite Ramos’ comments, Mexican citizens also deserve some of the credit because they support the anti-migration policy. Ramos said: That’s why I am surprised by the indifference shown by so many Mexicans over the abuses of the National Guard and the vicious attacks on social media aimed at Central Americans. Those xenophobic comments remind me of those I have been hearing for decades here in the United States, and of the appalling mistreatment of Mexican immigrants in recent years. Such abuses should not be forgotten or used to justify a similar treatment of migrants in Mexico.

https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2020/02/09/tv-host-jorge-ramos-trump-got-his-wish-mexico-now-wall/