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Trump Loyalists Get Top Pentagon Jobs After Esper Firing

Associated Press

   WASHINGTON - A day after President Donald Trump fired Defense Secretary
   Mark Esper, three staunch loyalists to the president were named to top
   defense jobs. Among them was a former Fox News commentator who failed
   to get through Senate confirmation because of offensive remarks he
   made, including about Islam.
   The abrupt changes sent reverberations through the Pentagon as nervous
   civilian and military personnel waited for the next shoe to drop. And
   they fueled worries of a wider effort to drum out anyone considered not
   loyal enough to Trump.
   The unease was palpable inside the building throughout the day over
   concerns about what the Trump administration may do in the months
   before President-elect Joe Biden takes office and whether there will be
   a greater effort to politicize the historically apolitical military.
   While radical policy shifts seem unlikely before the Jan. 20
   inauguration, the changes could further damage prospects for a smooth
   transition already hampered by Trump's refusal to concede his election
   loss.
   James Anderson, who had been acting undersecretary for policy, resigned
   Tuesday morning and he was quickly replaced by Anthony Tata, a retired
   Army one-star general. A short time later, Joseph Kernan, a retired
   Navy vice admiral, stepped down as undersecretary for intelligence,
   hastening what had been an already planned post-election departure.
   Kernan was replaced by Ezra Cohen-Watnick, who becomes acting
   undersecretary for intelligence.
   The departures came on Christopher Miller's second day on the job as
   defense chief. Miller also brought in his own chief of staff, Kash
   Patel, to replace Jen Stewart, who had worked in that job for Esper.
   Patel and Cohen-Watnick are both considered staunchly loyal to Trump
   and previously worked at the National Security Council.
   Patel was among the small group of aides who traveled with Trump
   extensively during the final stretch of the campaign. He also is a
   former prosecutor in the national security division of the Department
   of Justice and former staff member on the House Intelligence Committee.
   In that post, he was a top aide to Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., leading
   the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
   Patel was linked in media accounts to efforts to discredit the
   investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. He moved
   to the National Security Council in February 2019, and earlier this
   year, he traveled to Syria for rare high-level talks aimed at securing
   the release of two Americans who have been missing for years, including
   journalist Austin Tice.
   Cohen-Watnick was a protégé of Trump's initial national security
   adviser, Michael Flynn, but was replaced in the summer of 2017 by
   Flynn's successor, H.R. McMaster, as part of a string of shakeups at
   the White House and National Security Council.
   While the personnel changes added to the tumult in the wake of Esper's
   departure, it's not clear how much impact they could have on the
   massive Pentagon bureaucracy. The department is anchored by the tenet
   of civilian control of the military, and much of the day-to-day
   activities are conducted by career policy experts and military leaders
   in the U.S. and around the globe who adhere to a strict chain of
   command.

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