President-elect Donald Trump has offered the job of national security adviser to Michael Flynn, a former military intelligence chief who has been a vocal critic of the Obama administration, according to a senior Trump official.
Flynn, 57, who served as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, has advised Trump on national security issues for months. As national security adviser, he would work in the White House shaping foreign and military policy and have frequent access to a president with no national security experience.
The Trump official, who was not authorized to discuss the offer publicly, would not say whether Flynn had accepted the job.
According to photographs released by the Japanese government, he was however present at a meeting on Thursday in New York between Trump and the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, at which the US president-elect’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner were also present.
Flynn broke from other national security experts during the US election campaign who denounced Trump, joining the then-candidate at rallies and leading chants against Hillary Clinton, including those that called for her to be locked up.
In a fiery address at the Republican National Convention, Flynn emphasized his view that the threat posed by the Islamic State group required a more aggressive US military, as well as his belief that Washington should work more closely with Moscow.
A retired three-star army general, Flynn ran the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), one of the highest positions a military intelligence officer can attain, between 2012 and 2014. But clashes with top Obama administration officials led to his departure. James Clapper, the CIA director who announced his resignation on Thursday, played a leading role in Flynn’s departure.
A controversial figure, Flynn has been criticized for regularly appearing on RT, the Russian state-owned television station, and once attended an RT gala, sitting two seats from Russian president, Vladimir Putin. He later said his speaker’s bureau had arranged the trip and that he saw no distinction between RT and TV news organizations like CNN.
The post does not require Senate confirmation.
Flynn, who wrote in his 2016 book, The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies, that he was “not a devotee of so-called political correctness”.
In February, the general posted on Twitter, “Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL.” Then, in July, he retweeted an antisemitic post mocking the Clinton campaign’s blaming of Russian hackers for leaked emails: “CNN implicated. ‘The USSR is to blame!’ Not anymore, Jews. Not anymore.” Flynn later deleted his retweet and apologized, saying it was a mistake; the tweet about Muslims has not been deleted.
Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL: please forward this to others: the truth fears no questions... youtu.be/tJnW8HRHLLw
The reported pick drew immediate statements of concern, including from Human Rights Watch, which said that it showed “a deeply disturbing disregard for human rights principles and the laws of war”. The rights group noted that “Flynn has repeatedly refused to rule out Trump’s proposed use of torture and other war crimes.”
Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said in a statement on Thursday night that he was “deeply concerned about [Flynn’s] views on Russia” because of their “fondness for the autocratic and belligerent Kremlin”. He also pointed to the general’s “inflammatory remarks regarding Islam”, and his “uncritical acceptance of the Turkish crackdown on dissent”.
Schiff also said he thought the best choice for national security adviser would be someone “steady and thoughtful” who could “help offset the potentially impulsive nature of the next President”.
Also on Thursday, diplomatic sources said that David Petraeus – the former US army general and CIA director who was prosecuted for mishandling classified information – had entered the race to become Donald Trump’s secretary of state.
Petraeus resigned in November 2012 after the FBI discovered he had had an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, and had shared classified information with her. He eventuallypleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge for mishandling the information. People who have seen him recently say he is anxious to return to public life and has privately refused to rule out serving in a Trump administration.
Petraeus, who was also a US commander in Afghanistan and Iraq, has made flattering remarks about Trump since the election. “He’s right to criticise Washington over its partisanship and its inability to forge compromises,” he told the German cable news channel Deutsche Welle this week. “He’s a dealmaker. Let’s see if he can make some deals in Washington.”
He added: “This is an individual who is a political outsider. Perhaps he can do something in Washington that the political insiders, who he rightly criticises, have been unable to do, which is to come together to give a little, to gain a lot for our country.”
The favourite for the secretary of defence, according to diplomats who have been in touch with the Trump team in recent days, is Jeff Sessions, a rightwing, anti-immigration senator from Alabama who has been accused of making racist remarks.
But the battle for top foreign policy jobs is still intense, and foreign governments are being warned a comprehensive announcement may not be made until after the Thanksgiving holiday on 24 November.
On Thursday, Trump’s team announced he had met Sessions at Trump Tower in New York the day before. “The president-elect has been unbelievably impressed with Senator Sessions and his phenomenal record as Alabama’s attorney general and US attorney,” a spokesperson said. “It is no wonder the people of Alabama re-elected him without opposition.”
Earlier this week, the main contenders for secretary of state appeared to be former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and former ambassador to the UN John Bolton, but Giuliani ran into significant opposition over his extensive lobbying ties with foreign governments, and Bolton’s fiercely held convictions on the strategic need to confront Russian expansionism are at odds with the views of Trump’s inner circle.
South Carolina governor Nikki Haley is seen as another option, and she visited Trump Tower on Thursday. Haley, who was born in the US to Sikh parents who emigrated from India, would join a cabinet that looks set to be dominated by white men. Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, told reporters: “We’re just happy to have her here for her advice and her counsel and hearing about the great success story that is South Carolina under her leadership.”
A small circle including family members and Flynn is said to be urging Trump not make appointments of well-known Washington figures that would send a “business as usual” messages to the people who voted for him.
The president-elect also received advice on Thursday from Henry Kissinger, 93, who was secretary of state under Richard Nixon. A statement from the transition team office said they had “a great meeting” at Trump Tower and discussed China, Russia, Iran, the EU and other events and issues around the world.
It quoted Trump as saying: “I have tremendous respect for Dr Kissinger and appreciate him sharing his thoughts with me.”
Kissinger’s legacy as America’s top diplomat remains hugely divisive: Hillary Clinton, who also held the position, has welcomed his praise but her former Democratic rival Bernie Sanders branded him “one of the most destructive secretaries of state in the modern history of this country”.
Foreign governments have had to scramble to make connections with the Trump transition team, which one diplomat estimated at less than a hundred – a tenth of the size of Clinton’s would-be transition team that had been standing by until the shock election result.
The Germans have foundKushner their most amenable interlocutor, while the British, who have yet to cultivate Trump’s son-in-law, found their best contacts were swept out along with the former head of the transition team, New Jersey governor Chris Christie. British diplomats had to try a number of different routes before managing late on 9 November to arrange a phone call with Theresa May early the next morning.
Speculation over other cabinet positions is no less intense. As well as Sessions, Congressman Mike Pompeo of Kansas is also believed to be in contention for defence secretary. As a congressional candidate in 2010, he had to apologise for a tweet his campaign sent out promoting an article that called his opponent Raj Goyle, an Indian American Democrat, a “turban topper”.
Senator Ted Cruz, branded “Lyin’ Ted” by Trump during a bitter Republican primary campaign and now tipped as a possible attorney general, told Fox News that he and the celebrity businessman had had “a far-reaching conversation” at Trump Tower.
No comments:
Post a Comment