CIA Chief Would Move to State
The New York Times is reporting President Trump is expected to fire Secretary of State Rex Tillerson “within the next several weeks.” Under the plan Tillerson would be replaced by Trump’s duplicitous CIA chief, Mike Pompeo. Trump would then take GOP US Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas and install him at CIA.
Tillerson has, under Trump’s direction, gutted the State Dept. of decades of career diplomats. He has refused to deny calling Trump “a moron,” and their relationship has been strained from the start.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Tillerson have been at odds over a host of major issues, including the Iran nuclear deal, the confrontation with North Korea and a clash between Arab allies. The secretary was reported to have privately called Mr. Trump a “moronâ€Â and the president publicly criticized Mr. Tillerson for “wasting his timeâ€Â with a diplomatic outreach to North Korea.
The Times notes “an end-of-year exit would make his time in office the shortest of any secretary of state whose tenure was not ended by a change in presidents in nearly 120 years.”
It would be the second cabinet member Trump has lost in under a year.
CIA Director Mike Pompeo has proven to be a stooge for Trump. He recently claimed, falsely, the the “intelligence community’s assessment is that the Russian meddling that took place did not affect the outcome of the election.”
The CIA was forced to issue a correction.Â
Pompeo, at Trump’s urging, also met with the purveyor of a conspiracy theory who insists Russia did not interfere in the U.S. election.
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Image by US Dept. of State via Flickr
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