Pentagon chief ousts hundreds of advisers in sweeping purge of Trump loyalists
Iran Press TV
Thursday, 04 February 2021 8:31 AM
New Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin has fired hundreds of members of the Pentagon's advisory boards as part of efforts to oust nominees and officials appointed to the posts at the end of former president Donald Trump's administration.
Lloyd Austin, who recently took over at the Pentagon, ordered a review of 42 different advisory boards, suspending their operations and dismissed all of their members, two US officials said.
The two Pentagon officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Austin would be asking hundreds of members on the 42 different boards to leave by Feb. 16. The cost of running the boards could be in the millions of dollars, one of the officials said.
"There is no question that the secretary was deeply concerned with the pace and the extent of recent changes to memberships," the second official said. "It gave him pause to consider the broad scope and purpose of these boards."
Austin said, "As an interim step, I am directing the immediate suspension of all advisory committee operations until the review is completed."
He noted that as advisory boards "have and will continue to provide an important role in shaping public policy" within the department, "our stewardship responsibilities require that we continually assess to ensure each advisory committee provides appropriate value today."
Austin made the decision in response to Donald Trump's rushed appointment of officials and nominees to the boards before his term ended in January.
Among those appointees, Anthony Tata, a former acting senior defense official who called former President Barack Obama a "terrorist leader" in 2018 — was placed on the board on January 19, the last full day of the Trump administration.
Other Trump's last-minute appointments include former campaign officials Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie, as well as former Air Force pilot Scott O'Grady, who has echoed Trump's repeated claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential race.
Austin, the first Black Pentagon chief, is now asking them to leave by mid-February.
Last week, he suspended the on-boarding process for Trump nominees to the boards, effectively preventing them from being seated.
After getting through a months-long security clearance process, those nominees would have had access to classified information in the department. Austin's last week order suspended that process.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby called the Trump's rushed appointments as "frenetic activity" that has "deeply concerned the secretary and certainly helped drive him to this decision."
The former president, who is accused of inciting the deadly violence in the Capitol on January, will stand an impeachment trial in the senate next week.
Trump encouraged his supporters to "to be wild" while they were marching to the Capitol, as the lawmakers were holding a session to certify the victory of President Joe Biden in the November election.
House prosecutors said Trump was "singularly responsible" for the deadly rampage and must be convicted and barred from holding any future office.
Pentagon orders pause to address extremism in military ranks
In a move to address the threat of white supremacy and extremism among military ranks in the Pentagon, Austin ordered on Wednesday to each branch of the military to pause to allow troops and commanders a chance to focus on the issue.
Pentagon spokesman said that commanders would have 60 days to schedule events for "needed discussions" about extremism.
He said that the Capitol siege was "a wake-up call" for Pentagon to clear itself from white nationalism and other extremism.
Kirby said the order was designed to allow military leaders to make clear that white supremacy and other extremist ideology had no place in the armed forces and to hear from troops about how they view the problem.
Pentagon spokesman reaffirmed that current and former military members were found to have participated in or supported the Capitol violence.
In the US military, "stand-downs" are designed to focus the attention of the entire force on a serious problem or issue that requires every unit and every rank to pause their daily activity to discuss the problem.
Austin has formerly underscored the need to rid the military of "racists and extremists," but did not clarify how the department will be dealing with the issue.
The stand-down announcement came as lawmakers, the Washington mayor and police officers gathered beneath the Capitol dome to pay tribute to a police officer who died from injuries sustained during the Capitol siege by Trump supporters last month.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
