A4 eZ su the washington post.saturday, february 22 , 2020
intelligence agencies. maguire’s
deputy, Andrew P. Hallman,
r esigned friday. Grenell hired
Kash Patel, a National Security
Council aide who has worked in
the past to cast doubt on the
fBI’s investigation into russian
election interference. Grenell
has requested access to informa-
tion from the C.I.A. and other
intelligence agencies, the New
York Times reported, citing
two people familiar with the
matter.
The moves reflect the skepti-
cal view the president has had
of the intelligence community
after his campaign’s links to
russia were investigated and
several of his associates were
prosecuted.
The anger extends beyond the
intelligence agencies, and Trump
has also called for law enforce-
ment officials who investigated
his campaign to be investigated
or prosecuted. Even some Trump
allies are feeling heat over not
being aggressive enough about
taking on the president’s per-
ceived enemies.
At a donor roundtable Tues-
day at the montage Hotel in Los
Angeles, one participant point-been repeatedly undermined by
disloyal underlings.
“Loyalist shouldn’t be a dirty
word,” he said. “Loyalty to the
duly elected president and his
agenda is exactly what we should
expect from our unelected ap-
pointees.”
Brendan Buck, a longtime ad-
viser to former House speaker
Paul D. ryan (r-Wis.), said that
while Trump is entitled to have
political appointees who support
his agenda, the purity tests could
make it difficult to find qualified
people.
“If they also insist on hiring
only people who’ve never taken
issue with something the presi-
dent has done, it’s going to be
slim pickings,” he said.
Trump selected Grenell,
the ambassador to Germany,
to lead the intelligence commu-
nity in place of Joseph maguire
after becoming angry last
week when he learned that a
U.S. intelligence official had
told lawmakers that russia
wants to see him reelected, ac-
cording to people familiar with
the matter.
Grenell has moved quickly to
concentrate power within thesome of testimony of the w itness-
es who participated in Trump’s
impeachment inquiry.
Bureaucrats who want to
make policy instead of imple-
menting it “should put their
name on the effing ballot and
run” for office, he said during
remarks to a group of several
hundred people, according to
audio of a speech obtained by
The Washington Post.
Trump’s family members have
been among the m ain champions
of the effort to force out officials
who have not proved their devo-
tion to Trump.
Jared Kushner, the president’s
son-in-law and a senior adviser
in the White House, has played a
central role in the push, concen-
trating more power in the West
Wing and working to combat
leaks, officials said.
Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr.
wrote on Twitter that the im-
peachment investigation was
helpful in “unearthing who all
needed to be fired.”
Cliff Sims, a former White
House adviser who wrote a book
titled “Team of Vipers,” about his
time in the White House, has
said Trump’s presidency hasCivil servants, however, could be
sidelined in other ways.
As he became the third presi-
dent in American history to be
impeached, Trump seethed
against his own appointees who
defied White House lawyers to
comply with congressional sub-
poenas and testify about his
conduct. The process clarified
for Trump and his top advisers
that they had not focused
enough on personnel in the early
part of the presidency, creating a
loyalty deficiency the president
is moving quickly to correct,
officials said.
The burgeoning effort was re-
flected in Trump’s decision this
week to appoint richard Grenell
as the next acting director of
national intelligence, placing a
fiercely loyal but inexperienced
ally atop an intelligence struc-
ture against which the president
has frequently railed.
mulvaney used a speech this
week at the oxford Union in
Britain to inveigh against the
“deep state,” and he lamented
that the administration could
not fire more agency employees
who do not implement the presi-
dent’s orders. He referred tomayor mike Bloomberg and Sen.
Amy Klobuchar (D-minn.) for
what he said were their weak
debate performances. (They both
“choked,” he said, mimicking a
person clutching his chest and
struggling to breathe.) He com-
plained that “Parasite,” a South
Korean film with subtitles, had
won the oscar for best picture.
(“We’ve got enough problems
with South Korea,” he said, nos-
talgically calling for another win-
ner like “Gone With the Wind.”)
And he offered praise for a slew of
individuals — some familiar,
some less so. (A “nice, slim,
b eautiful-looking man,” he said,
describing Interior Secretary Da-
vid Bernhardt.)
Trump is a reluctant traveler,
partial to the comforts of his
eponymously branded proper-
ties, and his proposed Western
swings often have a way of crum-
bling under their own grandiosi-
ty, aides said.
The president initially grum-
bled about this visit as well but
was placated by being able to stay
at his own Trump International
hotel here every night, one offi-
cial said.
Asked before leaving why he
was returning to sleep at his own
property each evening, Trumpclaimed he wasn’t aware of the
nightly arrangement.
“Well, I don’t know exactly the
schedule because I don’t set the
schedule,” he said. “Largely, the
schedule is set by the Secret Ser-
vice. We do what they want us to.”
A White House official then
came back to the press cabin of
Air force one to explain that the
president was overnighting in
Las Vegas for security reasons, as
well as to save money and create
as small of an inconvenience as
possible for multiple cities.
Ultimately, Trump embraced
the nearly week-long trip, sharing
news of the final friday rally here
during an oval office visit with
the president of Ecuador last
week, before his campaign had
even announced the event.
for the most part, only his
tweets — a buzzing current of
angry energy that often started
early in the morning — belied his
sanguine public demeanor. He
mocked Bloomberg — “mini
mike” or just “mini,” in his
m icrobursts — and continued to
tweet about the Justice Depart-
ment, despite Attorney General
William P. Barr telling close asso-
ciates he might have to resign if
Trump kept on tweeting about
Justice Department affairs.edly questioned Senate Judiciary
Committee Chairman Lindsey o.
Graham (r-S.C.) on why he was
not holding accountable people
who were responsible for the
russia investigation.
“I see you on fox News every
night, and then you do nothing
about it. What are you going to
do about it?” the donor asked,
according to an attendee.
“What a fantastic question!”
Trump said.
meanwhile, administration of-
ficials are conducting a search
for the “A nonymous” author of a
tell-all book about Trump titled
“A Warning,” according to White
House trade adviser Peter Navar-
ro, who told CNN on friday that
the search had become a “voca-
tion with everybody.”
mcEntee, who lost his job in
2018 over concerns about his
online gambling, has long ex-
pressed an interest in the per-
sonnel office despite having no
previous government experi-
ence, two administration offi-
cials said. Within the West Wing,
he is seen as fiercely devoted to
the president and is well liked by
first lady melania Trump, the
officials said.
Some within the White House
have bristled a t his lack o f experi-
ence and aggressive approach to
ferreting out “ Never Trumpers.”
mcEntee “does not have the
relevant experience to do this
job, unless the job is to purge
Never Trumpers and reward loy-
alists,” one official said.
Another senior administra-
tion official countered that
mcEntee was talented and up to
the task, with the key qualifica-
tion of having the president’s
confidence.
As he gears up for the reelec-
tion contest, Trump has moved
to surround himself with long-
time allies who h ave proved their
devotion to him while pushing
away those who have not earned
his trust.
This month, Trump rehired
Hope Hicks, one of his longest-
serving aides and closest confi-
dants.
During a podcast interview
last week, Trump concurred
when fox News analyst Geraldo
rivera described the White
House as “a nest of vipers and
snitches and backstabbers and
rats.”
“I inherited a place with, you
know, many different adminis-
trations, and they worked there
for years and were civil service
and with unions and all of it,” he
said on rivera’s “roadkill” pod-
cast. “You can’t do what you’d
like to do.”
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]ous stretch of firings, resigna-
tions, controversial appoint-
ments and private skirmishes
that have since spilled into pub-
lic view.
The National S ecurity Council,
the State Department and the
Justice Department are targets
of particular focus, according to
two administration officials,
and there have recently been
multiple resignations and reas-
signments at each of those agen-
cies.
John C. rood, the official in
charge of Defense Department
policy who had certified that
Ukraine had met anti-corruption
obligations, was let go this week.
Victoria Coates, the deputy na-
tional security adviser who was
viewed with suspicion by some
White House aides, was removed
from her post and was moved to
an advisory position in the Ener-
gy Department.
mcEntee spent part of this
week asking officials in various
Cabinet agencies to provide
names of political appointees
working in government who are
not fully supportive of Trump’s
presidency, according to admin-
istration officials.
The president instructed
mcEntee to find people in the
administration who aren’t
aligned with Trump and “get rid”
of them, according to someone
familiar with the president’s di-
rective.
Trump did not provide addi-
tional specificity on what exactly
he wanted beyond a workforce
that more fully reflects his in-
stincts, the person said, and it
is unclear what criteria are be-
ing used to determine an offi-
cial’s fealty to the president.
mcEntee’s discussions with Cabi-
net a gencies were first reported
by Axios.
The 29-year-old former cam-
paign aide is planning to prepare
a presentation for Trump about
what he has found. While Sean
Doocey, the former director of
presidential personnel, reported
to acting White House chief of
staff mick mulvaney’s deputy,
mcEntee reports directly to the
president, according to a senior
administration official.
What began as a campaign of
retribution against officials who
participated in t he impeachment
process has evolved into a full-
scale effort to create an adminis-
tration more fully in sync with
Trump’s id and agenda, accord-
ing to several officials familiar
with the plan. It is unclear
whether civil servants will be
targeted as well, but it would be
harder to dislodge them than
removing political appointees.
trump from A
Trump purging appointees deemed weak in loyalty to him
Jabin botsford/the Washington Post
White House aides including J ohnny mcEntee, second from right, a t the White House on Jan. 2 3. president trump has given mcEntee a
mandate to identify for removal political appointees in t he government who are deemed insufficiently supportive of the president’s agenda.BY ASHLEY PARKERLAS VEGAS — Since the republi-
can-controlled Senate voted to
acquit him on impeachment
charges, President Trump has
been on something of a perpetual
victory lap.
He h as tweeted, he has crowed,
he has purged.
Then, this week, he took his
triumphant show to the West
Coast.
Trump’s post-impeachment,
four-day swing through as many
states — three of which Hillary
Clinton won in 2016 — was the
physical and geographic manifes-
tation of Trump emboldened, as
much a defiant flouting from an
exultant president as a peripatet-
ic hodgepodge of fundraising, ral-
lies and official White House
events out West.
over stops in Arizona, Califor-
nia, Colorado and Nevada, Trump
was buoyant almost to the point
of giddiness, bounding over to
greet supporters as he deplaned
Air force one and chatting off the
record with his traveling press
corps — including Wednesday
night when Trump, playing the
role of eager host, led a klatch of
reporters to his personal cabin
aboard the Boeing 747 to watch
the Democratic debate, which he
had TiVo’d.
Yes, he has been impeached —
a historical humiliation and a
forever asterisk on his presidency
— but this week, Trump wit-
nessed the Democrats attack one
another for two hours on a debate
stage here, basked in the adula-
tion of his cheering rally crowds
and presented as a man increas-
ingly confident about his reelec-
tion prospects.
Addressing an arena of sup-
porters Wednesday night in Phoe-
nix, Trump relayed the line-by-
line of his kinetic day — “I started
off with a speech in Nevada at
7:30 in the morning; I then went
to California, made two speeches;
I then went someplace else” —
and projected the image of some-
one weary but pressing forth, and
siphoning vigor from his crowds.
“I said, ‘A m I finished?’ ‘No,
you’ve got to go to Arizona to-
night and speak in front of like
25,000 people,’ ” Trump contin-
ued. “I said, ‘That’s okay,’ because
I love this unbelievable energy in
this crowd.”
on Tuesday, Trump raised
money in the liberal enclave of
Beverly Hills, Calif., which he
followed Wednesday morning
with another fundraiser hosted
by oracle founder Larry Ellison at
his verdant and exclusive Porcu-
pine Creek golf club in rancho
mirage, Calif.
As if to underscore Trump’s
foray into Democratic country,
Joe Grogan, the White House’s
director of the Domestic Policy
Counsel, tweeted: “Just landed in
California. PoTUS power swing
through occupied territory.”
Trump also scheduled a trio of
consecutive campaign rallies —
Wednesday night in Phoenix,
Thursday night in Colorado
Springs and friday afternoon in
Las Vegas — before heading back
home to Washington.
The Phoenix rally offered de-
liberate counterprogramming to
the Democratic debate here —
Trump took the stage exactly
30 minutes after the slate of 2020
hopefuls assembled behind their
own lecterns one state away —
and his Thursday rally was point-
edly placed in Colorado, a state he
lost by five percentage points to
Clinton in 2016 but one that his
campaign manager Brad Parscale
is bullish he can win this Novem-
ber.
“With your help this Novem-
ber, we are going to defeat the
radical Democrats and we are
going to win Colorado in a land-
slide,” T rump said Thursday night
at his rally in Colorado Springs.
By Thursday evening, the pres-
ident’s cheerful disposition
seemed to have faded slightly,
with Trump offering a nearly
1 00-minute performance that
was aggrieved and discursive at
times.
He mocked former New York“mini mike Bloomberg’s de-
bate performance tonight was
perhaps the worst in the history
of debates, and there have been
some really bad ones,” Trump
wrote. “He was stumbling, bum-
bling and grossly incompetent. If
this doesn’t knock him out of the
race, nothing will. Not so easy to
do what I did!”
on Andrew mcCabe, the for-
mer deputy director of the fBI,
the president weighed in again
Thursday, quoting an ally and
writing, “The decision not to
prosecute Andy mcCabe is utterly
inexplicable.”
And, like so much of what he
does, the president managed to
imbue even ostensibly serious
events with a certain Trumpian
panache. Speaking in Bakersfield,
Calif., on Wednesday at what was
billed as a roundtable to discuss
water accessibility issues with
r ural voters, Trump claimed —
while offering no evidence — that
Bloomberg “hates the farmer”
and suggested that Sen. Bernie
Sanders (I-Vt.) could very well
emerge as the Democratic nomi-
nee for president.
“We’ll have to start working on
Crazy Bernie pretty soon,” he said.
As the president’s motorcade
wound back to the airport there,
en route to his next stop, a staffer
enthused, “Now that’s how you do
a rally-table!” — coining a phrase
to describe the rallylike feel
Trump brought to the purported
roundtable.
on Thursday, Trump began his
day addressing a graduation for
prisoners here in Las Vegas. But
after briefly extolling the virtues
of redemption and second chanc-
es, Trump detoured to weigh in
on the breaking news that roger
Stone, a longtime confidant, had
been sentenced to three years and
four months in prison for imped-
ing a congressional investigation
of russian interference in the
2016 U.S. presidential election.
“I want the process to play out,”
the president said. “I think that’s
the best thing to do because I’d
love to see roger exonerated, andI’d love to see it happen because I
personally think he was treated
very unfairly.”
Trump’s digression about
Stone lasted several minutes, as
he waxed poetic about how Stone
is “definitely a character” who
“everybody sort of knows” —
“He’s a little different, but those
are sometimes the most interest-
ing,” he mused — and griped
about the jury forewoman, who
he claimed was a Never Trump
activist.
“Now, you wouldn’t know
about a bad jury?” Trump said, to
appreciative laughter. “A nybody
here know about bad? No? These
people know about more bad
juries than everybody here, in-
cluding the sheriff and the mayor
and everybody.”
Later, he again commiserated
with the graduates — newly re-
leased from prison and preparing
to reenter society — lamenting
that everyone, even the president
of the United States, has “those
days.”
“I mean, I didn’t do anything
wrong, and they impeached me a
few weeks ago, right?” Trump
asked, seeming bewildered.
“They impeached and I said,
‘What happened? What did I
do?’ ”
But he laughed, and then so did
the crowd, because the presi-
dent’s good mood was infectious.
And even Trump — who has
long raged and fumed over the
impeachment inquiry against
him, which he has repeatedly
dismissed as a “hoax” — managed
to look on the bright side.
“The good news,” he said, “my
numbers went through the roof.”
The president’s jovial mood
continued straight through the
end of his trip. Before heading
back to Washington on friday,
Trump bemoaned that his west-
ern road show was coming a
close.
“I have to get back to Washing-
ton and work,” he said at a rally in
Las Vegas. “I feel guilty. T his is too
much fun.”
[email protected]A triumphant T rump heads west, eager to mock Democratic opponents
Kevin Lamarque/reuters
president t rump speaks at a campaign rally in Las Vegas on Friday.
Nevada was one of four states that trump visited in as many days.