Career U.S. Military officials and Dept. of Defense civil servants are in shock after Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller ordered a ban on all Biden transition team members and meetings with representatives of the President-elect.

“Miller ordered a Pentagon-wide halt to cooperation with the transition of President-elect Biden, shocking officials across the Defense Department,” Axios reports, citing senior administration officials.

The move “stunned officials throughout the Pentagon,” and “was the biggest eruption yet of animus and mistrust toward the Biden team from the top level of the Trump administration.”

Coincidentally, the only item on President Donald Trump’s official schedule today is a meeting with acting Secretary Miller, who has only been on the job since early November.

One senior Pentagon official claimed Defense Dept. staff have been “overwhelmed by the number of meetings…and were being consumed by transition activities.”

Claiming they are “still committed to a productive transition” the Pentagon says “we are taking a knee for two weeks,” because of “the holidays.”

The move comes barely more than three weeks after Trump says he allowed the General Services Administration to release transition funds, officially designating Biden as president-elect and allowing for Biden team members to interface with the Trump administration to ensure continuity of government and a successful hand-off.

Image: DoD photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Jack Sanders via Flickr 

Emily Murphy, the Trump appointee who has the sole power to officially recognize President-elect Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 election, is herself seeking a new job.

Murphy “appears to be looking for a new job, according to a message obtained by ABC News,” the news network reports.

She “recently sent that message to an associate inquiring about employment opportunities in 2021, a move that some in Washington interpreted as at least tacitly acknowledging that the current administration soon will be gone.”

As the head of the General Services Administration (GSA), Emily Murphy runs a massive 12,000 employee, $21 billion independent government agency. By law, it is her duty to “issue a letter of ‘ascertainment’ determining the likely winner of the race,” CBS News reports.

Note that her job is not to determine the winner, but the likely winner, which has indeed been determined.

“Here’s somebody who refuses to sign the letter of transition but is self-dealing at the same time,” U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) told ABC News. “That’s a de facto recognition that there’s an incoming administration, and it’s not called Trump — it’s called Biden.”

He says her move “exposes the hypocrisy” of the Trump administration.

By refusing to issue the letter stating Biden is the likely winner of the election Murphy is blocking $6.3 million in federal funds allocated to support the transition. Her lack of action is not only blocking funds, however, she’s also blocking the ability for the Biden transition team to meet and coordinate with the outgoing administration.

Experts say her actions are having a serious impact on national security, and will hamper efforts to roll out the coronavirus vaccines.

Image: DHS photo by Tara Molle via Flickr 

President Donald Trump’s policy of putting “America first” has been extended past the nation’s borders and the water’s edge. A series of dozens of advertisements over the Independence Day weekend which the Trump re-election campaign placed on Facebook and Instagram promises to “protect” the iconic Christian statue known as “Christ the Redeemer,” or, “Cristo Redentor.”

“The President wants to know who stood with him against the Radical Left,” the ads, run on pages for President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence read, according to The Daily Beast.

“WE WILL PROTECT THIS,” the ads say, referring to the 98 foot tall statue, mounted atop Corcovado mountain in Rio de Janeiro, that has withstood countless challenges from human beings and from Mother Nature, including lightning strikes, wind, rain and erosion.

Trump has spent weeks now forging a message and promoting himself as a statue saver, including issuing an executive order that does little more than restate existing law. Fox News has supported this new campaign angle. Most of the statues Trump is interested in protecting are of America’s founders, many of whom were slave owners or supported slavery, along with statues of treasonous traitors who led the Confederacy in the Civil War against the United States.

The Facebook ads were viewed up to 1.1 million times.

The Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markay posted these images from Facebook:

Trump campaign ads over the weekend vowed to protect a new statue: “Christ the Redeemer” in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil https://t.co/8BdKz6kdfe pic.twitter.com/iFob0uSRl3

— Lachlan Markay (@lachlan) July 6, 2020

Image by tmlvngs via Flickr and a CC license