All the Trumpster’s Mayhem

Revolving-Door Fraudsters

Zachary D. Fuentes: Flag bearer to Oval office Decider

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he United States Coast Guard Academy’s entering cadets “take two semesters of classes—courses in “leadership, ethics, organizational behavior, and nautical science”— and a lot of military training “to produce officers of character with the requisite professional skills.”

Entering cadets in this establishment received “indoctrination into military culture,” which includes required memorization of trivia and changing information:

• the menu for the next three meals in the Wardroom (dining hall)

• the mission of the Academy

• the entire chain of command

• each athletic team's next scheduled opponent

• the lengths of different types of Coast Guard Cutters

• the meanings of all the different nautical flags, and

• the finer points of various military ceremonies.

This was Zachary D. Fuentes’s training before he became an assistant to the US president and a deputy chief of staff in the Trump administration. Though Wikipedia lists Northwestern University, under education in Fuentes’ profile data, I found no record here or in other sources that this man holds an academic degree, has substantive experience of any kind, or has any knowledge or preparation sufficient or suitable for (a) advising a US president, (b) earning a US government contract, (c) judging suitability or durability of surgical or other protective material, or (d) conducting any kind of business.  

In his job with the White House, Zachary D. Fuentes reportedly advised the president not to visit the World War I cemetery in Belleau, Northern France, on whose grounds stands a monument to United States Marines; and among the interred more than 2,289 dead, 1,060 commemorated, 250 unknowns; and Medal of Honor recipient Weedon Osborne.

Chicago native Weedon Edward Osborne, during the World War I Battle of Belleau Wood, attempted to “aid the wounded … and was killed while attempting to carry an injured officer to safety on June 6, 1918. Weedon Osborne died at age 25 and was buried in Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, Belleau, Aisne, France. Weedon Edward Osborne (November 13, 1892 – June 6, 1918) was a United States Navy officer and a recipient of America’s highest military decoration—the Medal of Honor (awarded posthumously along with the Distinguished Service  Cross)—for his actions in World War I. He is one of only three dental officers to have received the medal.

No Weedon Osborne, Zachary D. Fuentes reportedly is known for having tried to weasel out of his US military service commitment and get paid for escaping his original pledge.

In 2018, Zachary D. Fuentes reportedly had talks with US Homeland Security officials, who then pressured members of Congress, to add a clause in a House of Representatives bill that would allow him “to take advantage of a Coast Guard early retirement program— that had previously expired.”

Z

achary D. Fuentes is still making news for corruption and cowardice.

ProPublica reports: “A former White House aide won a $3 million federal contract to supply respirator masks to Navajo Nation hospitals in New Mexico and Arizona 11 days after he created a company to sell personal protective equipment in response to the coronavirus pandemic.”

Zachary D. Fuentes “sold Chinese masks to the government just as federal regulators were scrutinizing foreign-made equipment.” The former deputy chief of staff to President Trump had “won the contract just days after registering his company.”

In Wikipedia, the news reads

“During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Fuentes created Zach Fuentes LLC and received a $3 million contract to provide face masks 11 days after creating the company.

“The contract was with the Najavo Nation hospitals through the Indian Health Service.

“It appears over 25% of the masks are unsuitable for medical use, and another 15% were of a type that was not requested.

House members wanted to investigate the contract, and the OIG office [Office of Inspector General] of HHS [US Department of Health and Human Services] said they would take a look, in response to concerns raised by United States Representative from Virginia’s 11th congressional district Gerald Edward Connolly.

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eware all Inspectors General. US President Donald Trump’ rap sheet many entries of IG dismissals and firings.  

US Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

Inspector General John V. Kelly

December 1, 2017-June 2019

US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

Inspector General Joanne Chiedl

June 1, 2019-December 27, 2019

US Department of Transportation

Inspector General Calvin Scovel

October 26, 2006-January 31, 2020

US Intelligence Community

Inspector General Michael Atkinson

May 17, 2018-April 2020

US Department of Defense

Inspector General Glenn Fine

January 14, 2016- April 7, 2020

US Department of State

Inspector General Steve Linick

September 30, 2013-May 15, 2020

US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

Inspector General Christi Grimm

December 27, 2019 (expected departure) late 2020

Wikipedia

List of Trump administration dismissals and resignations (latest update May 25, 2020)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Trump_administration_dismissals_and_resignations

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overnment Chaos, a sorted record, and a cagey character  

Fuentes dumped the Guard and jumped into US federal contracting where he knew very well that, in a global health crisis, especially for scam artists, con men, and crooked politicians, there was even more money to be made and wasted than is usually made and wasted.

“The coronavirus pandemic loosened many federal procurement rules as agencies scrambled to respond to a national emergency,” Propublica wrote. “But as supplies of personal protective equipment ran out and many countries restricted exports, delivering on contracts became more difficult, and agencies have wrestled with incomplete orders, cancellations and possible counterfeit goods.”

“Small pox” and “Fire water” all over again

As coronavirus infections and deaths rose among people of the Navajo Nation, their hospitals were “desperate for protective supplies.”

The Navajo Nation, which occupies portions of northeastern Arizona, southeastern Utah, and northwestern New Mexico in the United States, the largest land area retained by a US indigenous tribe, with an estimated population of 173,667, had reported “4,434 COVID-19 cases, and 147 deaths.”

And Fuentes had fabricated a new enterprise.

Based on statements by the Indian Health Services,  ProPublica reported that “247,000 of the masks delivered by Fuentes’ company — at a cost of roughly $800,000 — may be unsuitable for medical use;” and another “ 130,400, worth about $422,000, are not the type specified in the procurement data.”

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merica is in the grips of a severe illness, an illness that is much worse and much deeper than a coronavirus pandemic.

America’s sickness is breach of trust and a critical loss of public trust, a loss of anchoring, secure grounding, of the ship of state. The condition has been brought on by careless officials; inept, unscrupulous, corrupt and criminal, deliberately ignorant, recklessly untrustworthy people in and around government positions and offices.   

We are a people in a bubble, a fixed, individually boxed-in state of nothingness, a place of interminable instability, unreality treated as “normal” (new or old normal); a void in which, unrecognizable, true substance is devalued, or dismissed without consideration. 

We are a sick nation unaware of our condition. 

Sources

Yeganeh Torbati and Derek Willis “The Feds Gave a Former White House Official $3 Million to Supply Masks to Navajo Hospitals. Some May Not Work” Propublica May 22, 2020 https://www.propublica.org/article/the-feds-gave-a-former-white-house-official-3-million-to-supply-masks-to-navajo-hospitals-some-may-not-work

indianz.com “ProPublica: Former Trump aide provided faulty masks to Indian Health Service”  May 22, 2020 https://www.indianz.com/News/2020/05/22/propublica-former-trump-aide-provided-fa.asp

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aisne-Marne_American_Cemetery_and_Memorial

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zachary_Fuentes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_Connolly

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensign_(rank)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Coast_Guard_Academy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajo_Nation

CBS News

Melissa Quinn “The internal watchdogs Trump has fired or replaced by

Updated on: May 19, 2020

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-inspectors-general-internal-watchdogs-fired-list/

Michael Atkinson

Intelligence Community

Mitch Behm

Transportation Department

Glenn Fine

Defense Department

Christi Grimm

Health and Human Services

Steve Linick

State Department

Insight Beyond Today’s News, CLB - © All Rights Reserved

Elephants Are Out of Place amidst Principles and other Precious Things

Merchants belong in mercantile sectors where everything’s for sale. Public Servants belong in the public (government) sector.

A towered elephant who enjoys seeing his name plastered on large buildings, a plunderer who never should have been nominated for or by any process or apparatus seated in the position of US head of state; and who has in office orchestrated continuous instability in the US executive branch of government and further weakened it by his incestuous positioning of family members and friends [unqualified and unfit for purpose]; and has recklessly undermined and accelerated the disestablishment of essential principles, processes, and proper working of the government of the United States.

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mong the elephant’s latest trampling is Michael Kevin Atkinson: Oswego, New York, native, Juris Doctor-Cornell Law School graduate, member of the District of Columbia Bar, 11 years practicing law partner in Winston and Strawn, 15 years with the US Department of Justice (Criminal Division, Fraud Section, 2002 through 2006; assistant US Attorney in the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, 2006 through 2016; National Security Division, 2006 –2018).

President Trump in November 2017 nominated the qualified Atkinson for the position of Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (ICIG); the US Senate, by voice vote, on May 14, 2018, confirmed the nomination of Atkinson.

During the Senate confirmation hearing, the nominee had reportedly promised to “encourage, operate, and enforce a program for authorized disclosures by whistleblowers within the intelligence community that validates moral courage without compromising national security and without retaliation.”

The following year, news sources reported that the US president had become “angry” with his nominee, felt him “disloyal” to him, and wanted to “fire” him.

On April 3, 2020, news sources reported that the elephant had again opted for his narcissistic pattern of furthering governmental destabilization by firing a qualified public servant, Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (ICIG) Michael Kevin Atkinson (source Wikipedia)

A

tkinson is quoted saying “It is hard not to think that the president’s loss of confidence in me derives from my having faithfully discharged my legal obligations as an independent and impartial inspector general, and from my commitment to continue to do so.” Atkinson is said to have pleaded with potential whistleblowers, whistleblowers, and their supporters “… not [to] allow recent events to silence [their] voices.….”

Addressing the rights of whistleblowers, he said, “I have faith that my colleagues in Inspectors General Offices throughout the federal government will continue to operate effective and independent whistleblower programs, and that they will continue to do everything in their power to protect the rights of whistleblowers.”

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UT 2020

Known US Executive Branch removals, firings, resignations

JANUARY 2020

• 1.     January 1, 2020: Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor

• 2.     January 8, 2020: Assistant Director for Cybersecurity (CISA) Jeanette Manfra
• 3.     January 10, 2020: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) director [became Chief Technology Officer of Lockheed Martin] Steven Walker
• 4.     January 13, 2020: Treasurer of the United States [became Small Business Administration administrator] Jovita Carranza
• 5.     January 31, 2020: Secretary of Defense Chief of Staff Eric Chewning
• 6.     January 31, 2020: Deputy Administrator for Resilience of the Federal Emergency Management Agency Daniel Kaniewski
• 7.     January 31, 2020: US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jessie K. Liu [nominated under secretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence; nomination withdrawn February 11, 2020]

FEBRUARY 2020

• 8.     February 2020: White House Director of Presidential Personnel Sean Doocey
• 9.     February 3, 2020: special advisor to the vice president on European and Russian affairs Jennifer Williams [returned to Us Department of State]
• 10.  February 3, 2020: Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs Thomas G. Bowman
• 11.  February 7, 2020: ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland
• 12.  February 7, 2020: United States Homeland Security Advisor Peter Brown [named special representative for Puerto Rico’s Disaster Recovery]
• 13.  February 7, 2020: National Security Council Director for European Affairs Alexander Vindman (and his twin brother, Yevgeny, also an Army Lieutenant Colonel and an ethics lawyer, removed from NSC]
• 14.  February 19, 2020: National Security Council senior director for Counterterrorism Kash Patel [moved to senior advisor at ODNI (Office of the Director of National Intelligence), as Richard Grenell becomes DNI]
• 15.  February 19, 2020: Under Secretary of Defense (Policy) John Rood
• 16.  February 20, 2020: Deputy National Security Advisor for Middle East and North African Affairs Victoria Coates [following “rumors” of her authorship of an anonymous op-ed, she is assigned to US Department of Energy]

MARCH 2020

• 17.  March 2020: Judge Randolph Moss ruled that the Trump administration’s appointment of Ken Cuccinelli as United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) acting director was in violation of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 [then positioned as Homeland Security acting deputy secretary.
• 18.  March 2020: General Counsel Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Jason Klitenic
• 19.  March 2, 2020: Director of Policy and Strategic Planning Earl Comstock
• 20.  March 6, 2020: staffer in several Trump administration positions Adam Kennedy
• 21.  March 30, 2020: White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney

APRIL 2020

• 22.  April 2020: Chief of Staff to the First Lady Lindsay Reynolds       
• 23.  April 2020: Inspector General of the Intelligence Community Michael Atkinson
• 24.  April 7, 2020: United States Department of the Navy Secretary Thomas Modly [reassigned after his vulgar display and removal of a naval officer who had reported infectious disease threat to sailors aboard ship USS Theodore Roosevelt]
• 25.  April 7, 2020: Department of Defense Inspector General Glenn Fine

A

gain the flailing Trump Hammer fell

This public servant has been praised as “a public servant in the finest tradition of honest, competent governance.” But the flailing mercantile mercenary fired him less than ten days after hiring him.

Philadelphia area Cheltenham, Pennsylvania-native Glenn Alan Fine’s resume reads like this:

• ·       Economics AB and Juris Doctor (JD) from Harvard University and Harvard Law School (1979 and 1985, respectively)
• ·       Assistant United States attorney for the Washington, DC, US Attorney’s Office - 1986 to 1989 and private law practice in Washington, DC; director of the Office of Inspector General’s Special Investigations and Review Unit
• ·       Special Counsel to the US Department of Justice Inspector General - January 1995 to 1996; Inspector General of the Department of Justice - December 2000 – January 2011
• ·       Acting (2015) then principal deputy Inspector General of the US Department of Defense - January 14, 2016 – April 7, 2020
• ·       Chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee [an ad hoc committee] March 30, 2020 – April 7, 2020

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lephants don’t belong in china shops as that which is precious should never be entrusted to plunderers, con men, and bankrupters; to individuals unsuited to public service, and glaringly unfit for the purpose of serving the public good.

The public is faced with having to set critical priorities—

·       matters directly bearing on physical (even mental) health in a pandemic; and

·       “the latest iteration of a long-established presidential pattern of narcissistically-motivated abuses of the presidential appointment power.”

Brookings fellow and Lawfare editor Benjamin Wittes writes that President “Trump is counting on public distraction to give himself political space for activity that would have been much more scandalous only a few weeks ago.

“There’s nothing quite like a global cataclysm to distract the public from mere presidential abuse and corruption,” he writes.  

With “nary a peep” from other political leaders, the president has been allowed to get away with “normalizing” what is far from normal:

 

“the hiring and removal of investigative and intelligence officials on the basis of whether or not they will deliver the goods the president wants, and whether or not they pose [are perceived by him to pose] a political threat to him.”

Benjamin Wittes’s prism sees but one alternative and a continuing regression paved by a prevailing tyranny of two.  I see differently.

 

In my view, the body politic must stop begging and rise nobly from the ashes, or from their knees. Find and field leaders who are able — intellectually, experientially, and ethically; men and women who have demonstrated that they are genuine servants of the country and its people.

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oing forward, Americans must find a way to separate public from private, service from selling; as they must separate state from church. They must remove the tyranny, the stranglehold of manipulative donkeys and monkeys (or elephants). They must deny office to blunderers in statecraft. They must deny office to the disingenuous who plunder the nation’s health and human and natural resources for their own and their friends, families and allies’ private gain.

Elephants, donkeys, and monkeys are not our only choices.

Sources

 

Wikipedia. “Michael Atkinson (Inspector General).” Latest update April 8, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Atkinson_(Inspector_General)

Press TV news. April 6, 2020: “Ousted US intelligence inspector Atkinson calls on others to defend whistleblowers.” https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/04/06/622421/US-Donlad-Trump-Michael-Atkinson-intelligence-community-inspector-general

 

Wittes, Benjamin “Why Is Trump’s Inspector General Purge Not a National Scandal?” Lawfare. April 8, 2020. https://www.lawfareblog.com/why-trumps-inspector-general-purge-not-national-scandal

Benjamin Wittes is editor in chief of Lawfare, an author, and a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution.

Wikipedia. “List of Trump administration dismissals and resignations.” Latest update April 8, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Trump_administration_dismissals_and_resignations

 

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