Candidate for Homeland Security Senior Position Withdraws Over Trump’s Transgender Military Ban

Trump ‘Squandered His Party’s Ability to Have Creditable Messengers in the LGBTQ Community’ Former GOP Executive Director Says

A former executive director of the Delaware Republican party has notified the Dept. of Homeland Security that he is withdrawing his name from consideration for a senior position in direct response to President Trump’s announced ban on military service members who are transgender. John Fluharty had been interviewing to be DHS’s assistant secretary of partnership and engagement.

“As I mentioned in our conversation, I am a strong advocate for diversity, both in the Republican Party and in government,” Fluharty wrote in an email to DHS, as Politico reports. “The President’s announcement this morning — that he will ban all of those who identify as transgender from military service — runs counter to my deeply held beliefs, and it would be impossible for me to commit to serving the Administration knowing that I would be working against those values.”

Politico adds that “Fluharty, who is openly gay, said he interviewed for the job on Tuesday, one day before Trump’s surprise tweet that the government ‘will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity’ in the U.S. military.” 

It did not take Fluharty long to make his decision.

“Fluharty sent the email to Luke Beckmann of the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday at 11:06 a.m., roughly two hours after Trump announced the ban on twitter,” the Washington Blade’s Michael K. Lavers reports.

Fluharty, who headed the Delaware GOP from 2002-2015, told the Blade in a statement the “ban on allowing transgender heroes to continue to serve in the military, and the actions by the Justice Department the following day, have effectively alienated the Republican Party from our community for a generation.”

Fluharty was referring to the Dept. of Justice’s attack on LGBT people this week, when attorneys argued in an amicus brief that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not protect gay people from workplace discrimination. The brief also used the term “homosexuals,” which drew the anger of many.

“The president,” Fluharty told the Blade, “has squandered an opportunity to strengthen not only our nation’s example to the rest of the world, but he has also squandered his party’s ability to have creditable messengers in the LGBTQ community on issues where there can be agreement such as reform of our public education system, lower taxes, and growing our economy.” 

Homeland Security is having a tough time filling the position. Earlier this year infamous right wing extremist David Clarke, a sheriff in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, who is a Trump ally and surrogate, announced he had accepted an offer for the position. Shortly after his announcement, CNN reported Clarke had “plagiarized portions of his master’s thesis on homeland security.” The following month CNN reported Clarke was “no longer under consideration” for the DHS job.

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Image: Screenshot via The White House/YouTube