Executive Departments 3

[GreyhoundFan]

"HUD's Ben Carson broke law with furniture order, GAO says"

Spoiler

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson broke the law when he failed to report an order for a $31,561 dining room table set for his office as well as the installation of an $8,000 dishwasher in the office kitchen, the Government Accountability Office found in a report published Thursday.

Agencies are required to notify Congress of expenditures over $5,000 to furnish an executive's office.

Carson canceled the table order after it surfaced in news reports in early 2018, and he appeared to blame the fiasco on his wife, Candy, in congressional testimony. HUD spokespeople offered conflicting accounts of what Carson knew about the order.

Congressional appropriators requested the GAO investigation.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee in charge of HUD, called the debacle "another example of the Trump administration trying to cast aside the law if it doesn't suit them."

"I am also disturbed by the pattern of false statements and attempts to conceal this incident, mislead the public, and prevent Congress and the American people from seeing how taxpayer dollars are being mismanaged," Reed said in an e-mailed statement.

HUD officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In its report, GAO said HUD officials said they will set up a task force in the department to "improve its internal procedures." HUD has also instituted a mandatory review process "under which both its Office of Administration and Office of the Chief Financial Officer must approve all obligations or expenditures for covered purchases that affect any offices of any of HUD's presidentially appointed officials," GAO said.

 

[fraurosena]

10 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"HUD's Ben Carson broke law with furniture order, GAO says"

  Hide contents

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson broke the law when he failed to report an order for a $31,561 dining room table set for his office as well as the installation of an $8,000 dishwasher in the office kitchen, the Government Accountability Office found in a report published Thursday.

Agencies are required to notify Congress of expenditures over $5,000 to furnish an executive's office.

Carson canceled the table order after it surfaced in news reports in early 2018, and he appeared to blame the fiasco on his wife, Candy, in congressional testimony. HUD spokespeople offered conflicting accounts of what Carson knew about the order.

Congressional appropriators requested the GAO investigation.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee in charge of HUD, called the debacle "another example of the Trump administration trying to cast aside the law if it doesn't suit them."

"I am also disturbed by the pattern of false statements and attempts to conceal this incident, mislead the public, and prevent Congress and the American people from seeing how taxpayer dollars are being mismanaged," Reed said in an e-mailed statement.

HUD officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In its report, GAO said HUD officials said they will set up a task force in the department to "improve its internal procedures." HUD has also instituted a mandatory review process "under which both its Office of Administration and Office of the Chief Financial Officer must approve all obligations or expenditures for covered purchases that affect any offices of any of HUD's presidentially appointed officials," GAO said.

 

I'm glad the GAO confirms he broke the law. But why did it have to take so long? Everybody with half a brain knew it already. 

It's frustrating that the only consequences of breaking the law in this way is that 'a task force' will be set up in the department to 'improve internal procedures' and a mandatory review process will be instituted.

If you're part of this administration, it turns out you really are above the law.

[GreyhoundFan]

This is not good. Cucinelli is a horrible person. He wants to take us back to the 50s, the 1850s. Disliking him is probably the ONLY thing I have in common with McTurtle. "Trump administration will hire Cuccinelli for senior DHS border role"

Spoiler

The Trump administration will hire conservative firebrand and former Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli II to buttress its immigration efforts, according to three administration officials.

Cuccinelli will work at the Department of Homeland Security in a senior role, a senior White House official said, declining to specify what Cuccinelli’s duties will entail, what his job title will be or if he will report to Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan.

The hiring appears to come in response to Trump’s desire for an immigration “czar” to help coordinate border policies across agencies, officials said, although the job will be more limited in nature.

Cuccinelli was at the White House on Monday, officials said. He could not be immediately reached for comment. News of Cuccinelli’s expected hiring was first reported by the New York Times.

The former Virginia attorney general is deeply disliked by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has vowed to block Cuccinelli from any Senate-confirmed post after Cuccinelli helped lead efforts in 2014 backing insurgent candidates that hurt the Senate GOP majority, McConnell advisers said.

For months, DHS officials have discussed the need for a border crisis manager who would coordinate among the multiple federal agencies struggling to cope with an unprecedented surge of Central American migrant families.

 The job would smooth out communication and planning among the departments of Defense, Justice and Health and Human Services, as well as DHS. But that role was never contemplated as one outranking the DHS Secretary; rather the person would work in a complementary role.

 In April, more than 100,000 migrants were taken into custody for the second consecutive month, and the numbers in May are on pace to go even higher.

But some in the administration fear there will be too many power players fighting to wrest control over an immigration agenda — with White House adviser Stephen Miller already chafing officials at DHS.

One White House adviser said Cuccinelli would probably advocate for the White House’s aggressive position at the agency. Miller has argued to Trump that others within DHS are trying to stall him.

At the Republican Party convention in 2016, Cuccinelli protested the “petty, tyrannical rules” and threw his convention badge on the floor in protest of Trump’s nomination. He was a strong supporter of the presidential bid by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who has since become one of Trump’s most ardent defenders.

Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank whose immigration-reduction agenda has had significant influence in The White House, called Cuccinelli “an unusual choice.”

“He doesn’t have any immigration experience, but he does have law enforcement experience,” said Krikorian, who said he was “cautiously optimistic” that the appointment would make a difference. “If he does not answer directly to the president, he’s not likely to be able to get much done,” he said.

One senior administration official expects Cuccinelli to function more like a crisis manager and policy adviser with a direct line to Trump, who is frustrated with the border surge.

“He won’t be able to order McAleenan to do a thing,” the official said. “The president’s frustration is not directed at DHS alone. It’s DOJ, DOD, State. So this job will ensure closer coordination at a senior level, and it’s an effort to acknowledge you need someone who can have conversations with department heads about policies and drive them to the same place.”

The official said Cuccinelli’s appointment risked undercutting McAleenan at a time when the acting secretary has been making inroads with lawmakers, including Democrats who see him as a neutral law enforcement official, rather than a White House political operative.

“I don’t see how this appointment makes things better on the Hill,” the official said.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I saw a comment earlier that people were questioning whether Carson was drunk or on drugs during this hearing: "Ben Carson misheard a housing term as ‘Oreo,’ and other tense moments at a congressional hearing"

Spoiler

When a freshman congresswoman asked Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson at a congressional hearing Tuesday whether he knew what the housing term “REO” was, Carson thought she was referencing the similar-sounding cookie.

“An Oreo?” the secretary asked.

No, said Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.), her tone firm. She spelled it back to him, twice.

Carson came up with: “real estate e-organization.”

It’s actually “real estate owned.”

The term refers to property owned by a bank or a lender after it’s been foreclosed. Porter wanted to know why the rate of REOs issued by the Federal Housing Administration is higher than that for other government-owned real estate.

Hours after the hearing, Carson tweeted a photo of a package of Oreos next to a note thanking Porter for participating in the hearing, with the caption: “OH, REO! Thanks, @RepKatiePorter. Enjoying a few post-hearing snacks. Sending some your way!”

Porter said in an interview with CNN on Tuesday night that Carson did, in fact, send cookies to her office.

“He actually sent a family-size box of Double Stuf Oreos to our office,” she said. “And while I was pleased to receive correspondence from him, what I’m really looking for is answers.”

Carson appeared before the House Financial Services Committee for more than three hours, fielding questions about housing policies. Several times he stumbled as Democrats, especially the women on the committee, tried to poke holes in his knowledge of the agency he runs.

Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) asked him if he was familiar with “OMWI.”

“With who?” Carson asked.

“OMWI,” the congresswoman repeated.

“Amway?” the secretary replied.

The acronym stands for Office of Minority and Women Inclusion. Beatty wanted to know whether HUD had such an office and whether he worked with its director.

“Of course we have an office of . . .” Carson trailed off.

“OMWI,” the congresswoman repeated.

Except HUD doesn’t have an OMWI. Instead, it has an Office of Diversity and Inclusion, which performs a similar function. Either way, Carson couldn’t name the director of that office.

Then, near the end of the hearing, freshman Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) chided Carson and the Trump administration for failing to improve conditions in low-income housing. During a lightning round in which Pressley wanted yes or no answers to her questions, Carson failed to provide them.

During one particularly contentious moment, Carson said, “Reclaiming my time.”

“You don’t get to do that,” Pressley retorted.

Pressley then asked Carson if he would allow his grandmother to live in public housing under his watch.

“It would be very nice if you could stop . . .” Carson trailed off, and Pressley’s time expired.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

More about the horrible Cucinelli:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Still more about Cuccinelli. I bet Dumpy will nominate him for DHS before all is said and done.

"Cuccinelli, a righteous, faith-driven warrior who delights in provocation, will join Trump administration"

Spoiler

Long before Donald Trump entered politics, Ken Cuccinelli II, the former Virginia attorney general turned conservative TV pundit, warned against “an invasion” by illegal immigrants, sponsored a bill seeking to strip those immigrants’ U.S.-born children of their citizenship, and speculated publicly that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

Cuccinelli’s reputation as a right-wing firebrand and a favorite of conservative evangelicals helped pave the way for his expected appointment this week to an unspecified senior role on immigration matters at the Homeland Security Department — a move Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had advised the White House to avoid.

Between his strong rhetoric as a TV surrogate for Trump and his bedrock support among social conservatives, Cuccinelli presented the president with a combination he relishes: someone who seems loyal, is popular with his base, and is good at the politics of disruption and provocation.

Cuccinelli, 50, is a self-declared warrior for traditional Christian values who has stuck to his positions even when it harmed his political fortunes. He lost his 2013 race for Virginia governor after alienating independents and moderate Republicans with his unbending positions on social issues.

He has declared that homosexuality “brings nothing but self-destruction, not only physically but of their soul.” He accused Obama in 2015 of encouraging “an invasion” by illegal immigrants. And on a radio talk show in 2012, he said that a D.C. law that prevented animal control workers from killing rats “is worse than our immigration policy. You can’t break up rat families.”

During the 2013 campaign, Cuccinelli did for a time ease up on his anti-immigration positions, at one point removing from his website a statement that he had “voted consistently against in-state tuition for illegal aliens.” (As a state senator, he supported a bill that would have gone further, banning illegal immigrants from attending state colleges at all.)

But since that race, he has returned to the kind of sharp language Trump admires. Like Trump, he openly speculated that Obama was born in Kenya, saying in 2010 that “that doesn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility.” He later backed away from that statement.

Cuccinelli also said shortly before the birth of his seventh child in 2010 that he and his wife were considering refusing to get the baby a Social Security number “because it is being used to track you.”

Cuccinelli was, however, no fan of Trump during the 2016 primaries. Cuccinelli supported Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) and disgustedly threw his convention credentials on the floor to protest Trump’s nomination. “Shame! Shame!” he shouted when pro-Trump forces shut down an effort to change the party’s rules to make the nomination process friendlier to conservatives.

In the years since, however, he has become an avid defender of the president. Last week, in a discussion on CNN about why Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), once a vehement critic of Trump’s, had become one of the president’s strongest supporters, Cuccinelli said that Graham “is a political operator, and he adjusts as the circumstances change. Some of that is politics.” Trump, he said, “has been kind of a learning experience for a lot of people in the Republican Party.”

Cuccinelli had spent his career bucking politics as usual, presenting himself to voters as a principled conservative who would not compromise. He surprised and angered some Virginia Republican leaders in 2013 when he published a book bashing Obama’s health-care overhaul, unleashing strong anti-government rhetoric just as other Republicans in the state were trying to appeal to independent and moderate voters with a less abrasive message.

Major donors, business leaders and moderate GOP politicians called Cuccinelli too extreme. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which had given $1 million in campaign donations to Virginia’s last Republican governor, Bob McDonnell, gave Cuccinelli nothing. Then-Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, who lost the Republican primary for governor to Cuccinelli, refused to endorse him, saying the party needed to “reconnect with a more diverse voter base.”

The candidate was unapologetic. He insisted he would win by sticking to “first principles” — his long-held view that voters craved a politician who stood up for the Constitution, morality and limited government.

“This is a referendum on growing or resisting Obamacare,” Cuccinelli told supporters in the final days of the campaign. “If you like it, vote for them. If you don’t, vote for me.”

He lost to Democrat Terry McAuliffe.

Cuccinelli, who started out as a state senator from Fairfax County in the D.C. suburbs, often won attention as a crusader for socially conservative causes. He proposed to protect employers who fired workers for not speaking English on the job. As Virginia’s attorney general, he told the state’s public colleges that they could not use the term “sexual orientation” in nondiscrimination policy statements — a ruling that the state’s Republican governor reversed.

A feisty combatant going back to his student days, Cuccinelli first won attention at the University of Virginia by siding with the school’s feminist group to press administrators to hire a professional to deal with sexual violence on campus. He supported and worked for Democrat Doug Wilder, Virginia’s first black governor, in the early 1990s before he turned solidly Republican.

But he has consistently railed against the idea that it’s the government’s job to ease people’s burdens.

“Life isn’t necessarily fair and it’s not government’s job to make it fair,” he wrote in “The Last Line of Defense,” his anti-ACA book. Taking care of the poor, he said, is the job of “families, churches and charities, not the government.”

Democrats and some Republicans saw Cuccinelli as a faith-driven warrior, more interested in making a point than in making a deal.

“He didn’t drink the Kool-Aid; he made it,” Dick Saslaw (D-Fairfax), the state Senate minority leader, said in 2013. “You name the antiabortion tactic and he was for it. Believe me, we had some very conservative people in the Senate and they winced at his bills, they were so extreme. Whether it was bashing gays or immigrants, nobody wanted to be associated with him.”

But a fellow Republican from Fairfax, former delegate Dave Albo, said during that same campaign that Cuccinelli was “really not the crazed maniac we read about in the paper. It took me a while to figure it out: Ken Cuccinelli is Catholic, and a lot of Catholics believe the rules are the rules.”

Cuccinelli himself has always granted that he is not the compromising type. “I don’t back down,” he once told an audience of evangelical leaders. “I’m not afraid to lose. What happens if I lose? I go home. I like going home.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Shanahan is just as much a toady as the other BTs in this sham administration: "Internal memo orders military to restrict information it shares with Congress"

Spoiler

Acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahan has mandated new restrictions on the way the Pentagon shares information with Congress about military operations around the world, a move that is straining ties with key Republican and Democratic lawmakers.

In a May 8 internal memo, which was obtained by The Washington Post, Shanahan lays out the criteria for when Pentagon officials may provide congressional offices or committees information they request about operational plans and orders.

The memo comes as lawmakers from both parties complain that the Trump administration has withheld information that prevents them from executing their constitutionally mandated oversight role. Some lawmakers are also concerned about whether Shanahan has allowed the military to be drawn too deeply into President Trump’s immigration agenda.

“Congress oversees the Department of Defense; but with this new policy, the department is overstepping its authority by presuming to determine what warrants legislative oversight,” Reps. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) and Mac Thornberry (R-Tex.), the chair and ranking Republican of the House Armed Services Committee.

The memo was shared widely inside the Pentagon but was sent to key lawmakers only after inquiries by The Post. It outlines a half-dozen guidelines, including requirements that military officials and political appointees evaluate whether the request “contains sufficient information to demonstrate a relationship to the legislative function.” The memo urges Defense Department officials to provide a summary briefing rather than a requested plan or order itself.

The memo appears to have been inspired by concerns that lawmakers, who have security clearances, will not safeguard military plans. It calls on officials to assess “whether the degree of protection from unauthorized disclosure that Congress will afford to the plan is equivalent to that afforded” by the Pentagon.

Sen. Jack Reed (R.I.), the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the memo “seems to be another way in which they can claim that they don’t need to respond to legitimate inquiry of Congress.” Reed received the memo Saturday, shortly after The Post asked the Pentagon about it.

“From what I can glean from the memorandum basically they can use any factor they want to say no and they can make a determination what they think we need to do our job,” Reed said in an interview. “I think we’re better positioned to determine what we need to do our job.”

A defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe military officials’ thinking about the memo, said Pentagon leaders had been concerned about preserving the military chain of command and about the potential for congressional interference in what they consider to be an executive branch function, the formulation of military operations.

The official said that Congress had been most interested in learning more about Special Operations activities, which are among the most sensitive military operations but have also, in recent years, produced some of the biggest public backlashes.

“While I understand they’re not happy . . . we’ve gone from saying no to setting a process to adjudicate and consider saying yes,” the official said.

The guidelines represent a dramatic twist in a decades-long tug-of-war between the Pentagon and Congress over access to sensitive information.

While lawmakers routinely request information on a host of military matters, including weapons programs, personnel procedures and support to allies, they are also sometimes provided classified information about current or future military operations, which they are barred by law from disclosing.

The memo could complicate Senate confirmation hearings for Shanahan, who took over in January after his predecessor, Jim Mattis, resigned over differences with Trump. Shanahan is expected to appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee in June.

Lt. Col. Joe Buccino, a spokesman for Shanahan, said the new policy aims to increase “transparency and information sharing with Congress.”

Under Shanahan’s direction, Buccino said, “the Department of Defense has been engaging with the Senate and House Armed Services Committees to develop a process for providing Congress with access to plans and operational orders, including Executive Orders.”

While Trump has praised Shanahan, a former Boeing executive, numerous lawmakers have expressed skepticism about his ability to act as a counterweight to the president and his closest advisers in delicate matters of national security. Mattis labored to insulate the military from the country’s divisive politics and the White House, which won him plaudits from lawmakers but damaged his relationship with Trump.

Since taking on the top Pentagon job, Shanahan has presided over a deepening of the military’s involvement along the southern border, a mission Mattis viewed with skepticism but did not resist.

Some lawmakers see Shanahan’s decision to shift resources toward construction of a border wall, which has helped make up for Congress’ refusal to allocate funds for that purpose, as an effort to flout their prerogative.

In the new memo, Shanahan concentrates responsibility for evaluating congressional requests in the office of the undersecretary of defense for policy, which is typically led by a political appointee. Previously, officials across the Defense Department responded to requests on a more ad hoc basis, in keeping with what officials described as a “gentleman’s agreement” with lawmakers.

According to Reed, obtaining access to such information has become harder since Trump took office. Reed cited a 2017 operation in Niger in which four U.S. service members died, after which he said lawmakers had to “track down” the related operational orders and review the legal authorities under which troops were operating.

But officials from both the Pentagon and Capitol Hill agreed that a more formalized process for sharing information, if done in a mutually acceptable way, would be of value.

A former senior Pentagon official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly, said the memo did not appear to establish a more difficult process for routine congressional requests related to other oversight topics, including policy and budgetary issues.

“Rather, it appears to set an elevated, formal and mostly reasonable process relative to requests for a specific and especially sensitive subset of Pentagon materials provided the Pentagon doesn't seek to weaponize the process to frustrate a broader range of oversight requests, which would be deeply problematic,” the former official said.

Smith and Thornberry said they intended to address the sharing of operational information in this year’s defense authorization bill, which is now being drafted.

They appeared particularly galled by the memo’s suggestion that Congress might make sensitive information public, which they characterized as “inexcusable and inaccurate.”

“The Department is not in a position to evaluate defense committees’ worthiness to receive classified information, nor characterize our ability to appropriately protect it,” they said.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Proposed HUD rule would strip transgender protections at homeless shelters"

Spoiler

The Department of Housing and Urban Development on Wednesday proposed a new rule that would weaken Obama-era protections for homeless transgender people, allowing federally funded shelters to deny people admission on religious grounds or force transgender women to share bathrooms and sleeping quarters with men.

The proposed rule comes one day after HUD Secretary Ben Carson assured members of Congress the agency had no plans to eliminate the 2012 Equal Access Rule, which barred federal housing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

When questioned by Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-VA) on HUD’s treatment of transgender people, Carson said his responsibility is to “make sure everybody is treated fairly. ”

He assured Wexton that HUD had no plans to alter the Equal Access protection, saying: "I’m not currently anticipating changing the rule. ”

The proposal is the latest move by the Trump administration to weaken protections for transgender Americans, including a Department of Defense ban on transgender troops and a Department of Health and Human Services proposal allowing medical providers to deny treatment to transgender people on religious grounds.

In 2017, the HUD website removed links to documents that guided emergency shelters on how best to serve transgender people facing homelessness and comply with agency regulations. It also withdrew policy proposals requiring HUD-funded emergency shelters to post notices informing people of LGTBQ rights and protections.

Carson told the House Financial Services Committee that those notices were unnecessary because the Equal Access Rule provisions already “adequately provide for fairness for all communities.” He said he wanted to allow for more “local jurisdictional control” over how to treat people.

As to whether LGBTQ people should be protected under fair housing and other civil rights laws, Carson said: “If you want to do something different about the definition of gender, that is a congressional duty. ”

Wexton on Wednesday chastised Carson for HUD’s move to roll back transgender protections.

“Yesterday, I asked Secretary Carson directly if he was anticipating any changes to HUD’s Equal Access Rule and he said no. The announcement today that HUD will now allow anti-trans discrimination in shelters demonstrates that he either lied to Congress or has no idea what policies his agency is pursuing. Either way, it’s unacceptable," Wexton said in a statement.

The agency published a one-paragraph summary of the proposal, allowing shelters whose facilities are segregated by sex -- such as bathrooms, showers, and sleeping quarters -- to establish a policy that considers an individual’s sex for the purposes of determining admission. The new rule says shelters could consider a range of factors, including “privacy, safety, practical concerns, religious beliefs,” when deciding whether or how to accommodate someone.

The agency, in its summary, also said the rule “continues HUD’s policy of ensuring that its programs are open to all eligible individuals and families regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.”

Transgender advocates characterized it as a “heartless attack” and said it signifies an “escalation of the Trump administration’s broader plan to erase transgender people from federal regulations and legal interpretations. ”

“It completely guts the Equal Access Rule," said Mara Keisling, Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. “The Trump administration is, once again, targeting the most vulnerable trans people by empowering shelters to turn people away and deny them equal access to services."

The agency told the Post it has no intention of removing the Equal Access Rule and will continue enforcing its provisions. But in a statement HUD acknowledged that the agency will be proposing a change later this year “that will offer local homeless shelter providers greater flexibility when making decisions about individuals who may misrepresent their sex to access sex-specific shelters.”

One in three transgender people have experienced homelessness — including one in eight in the last year alone, putting them at risk of physical and sexual violence and being forced into sex work, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality.

Seventy percent of transgender people who tried going to a shelter in the last year were kicked out for being transgender, were physically or sexually assaulted, or faced another form of mistreatment because of their gender identity, the center said.

The new proposal caught career staffers by surprise, including some who have worked on writing housing policies related to LGTBQ people.

“We don’t even know where it’s coming from. What are they hoping to accomplish?" said one staffer who is not authorized to speak on the record. "Now it’s not clear what guidelines people are supposed to follow. It’s crazy.”

Similarly, HUD career staff were not involved in another Trump administration proposal to purge undocumented immigrants from subsidized housing. Career staff later wrote an analysis of the proposal targeting families of mixed immigration status and concluded that it could put up to 55,000 children who are legal U.S. residents or citizens at risk of eviction and homelessness.

The non-stop heartlessness of this sham administration is appalling.

[GreyhoundFan]

I'm sure Dumpy and his minions see this as a "two-fer", they get rid of federal employees AND they cut a program that actually helps people:

 

[CTRLZero]

18 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I'm sure Dumpy and his minions see this as a "two-fer", they get rid of federal employees AND they cut a program that actually helps people:

My niece, who just graduated from high school, worked in a summer program last year and has just reapplied.  I'm not sure if it's the same agency program, but she worked really hard clearing trails and creating firebreaks.  Since they are apparently shutting the Oregon office, I'm guessing she'll be affected.  These are such great programs.  Damn.

[GreyhoundFan]

This from Eric's wedding caterer who was hired by Dumpy to work at HUD. She doesn't care if she is violating the Hatch Act. What a surprise.

 

[Audrey2]

52 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I'm sure Dumpy and his minions see this as a "two-fer", they get rid of federal employees AND they cut a program that actually helps people:

 

I'm quite upset about this, as it was a good program for everyone except Trump.

On a sarcastic note- if we reduce this program, who will rake the forests?

[Howl]

21 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

On a sarcastic note- if we reduce this program, who will rake the forests?

Good point! 

But yes, I've come across these amazing trail crews while mountain biking in New Mexico.  There are so many pluses to these types of training programs, but for the young participants and those leading them.  

[GreyhoundFan]

Because only the most horrible people will work in this sham administration...

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I wouldn't want to even be in he same room with any of his cabinet secretaries:

 

[Howl]

On 5/22/2019 at 6:39 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

Shanahan is just as much a toady as the other BTs in this sham administration:

So Shanahan may be in the #ETTD (Everything Trump Touches Dies) situation. Trump made noises about a month ago about appointing him permanent SecDef and now....crickets. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Wow, Shanahan is not going to be the official nominee: "As Trump’s defense pick withdraws, he addresses violent domestic incidents"

Spoiler

In the months that he has served as President Trump’s acting secretary of defense, Patrick Shanahan has worked to keep domestic violence incidents within his family private. His wife was arrested after punching him in the face, and his son was arrested after a separate incident in which he hit his mother with a baseball bat. Public disclosure of the nearly decade-old episodes would re-traumatize his young adult children, Shanahan said.

On Tuesday, Trump announced in a tweet that Shanahan would not be going through with the nomination process, which had been delayed by an unusually lengthy FBI background check, “so that he can devote more time to his family.”

Shanahan spoke publicly about the incidents in interviews with The Washington Post on Monday and Tuesday.

“Bad things can happen to good families . . . and this is a tragedy, really,” Shanahan said. Dredging up the episode publicly, he said, “will ruin my son’s life.”

In November 2011, Shanahan rushed to defend his then-17-year-old son, William Shanahan, in the days after the teenager brutally beat his mother. The attack had left Shanahan’s ex-wife unconscious in a pool of blood, her skull fractured, and with internal injuries that required surgery, according to court and police records.

Two weeks later, Shanahan sent his ex-wife’s brother a memo arguing that his son had acted in self-defense.

“Use of a baseball bat in self-defense will likely be viewed as an imbalance of force,” Shanahan wrote. “However, Will’s mother harassed him for nearly three hours before the incident.”

Details of the incidents have started to emerge in media reports about his nomination, including a USA Today report Tuesday about the punching incident in 2010.

In an hour-long interview Monday night at his apartment in Virginia, Shanahan, who has been responding to questions from The Post about the incidents since January, said he wrote the memo in the hours after his son’s attack, before he knew the full extent of his ex-wife’s injuries. He said it was to prepare for his son’s initial court appearance and that he never intended for anyone other than his son’s attorneys to read it.

“That document literally was, I sat down with [my son] right away, and being an engineer at an aerospace company, you write down what are all of the mitigating reasons something could have happened. You know, just what’s the list of things that could have happened?”

As he later wrote in the divorce case, Shanahan said Monday that he does not believe there can be any justification for an assault with a baseball bat, but he went further in the interview, saying he now regrets writing the passage.

“Quite frankly it’s difficult to relive that moment and the passage was difficult for me to read. I was wrong to write those three sentences,” Shanahan said.

“I have never believed Will’s attack on his mother was an act of self-defense or justified. I don’t believe violence is appropriate ever, and certainly never any justification for attacking someone with a baseball bat.”

Kimberley Shanahan, who has since changed her name to Kimberley Jordinson, has not responded to repeated efforts since January by reporters to contact her via email, text, phone and social media seeking comment about the incidents.

Patrick Shanahan’s response when his family was split by acts of domestic violence — including steps he took to manage his son’s surrender to police and to try to keep him out of jail — is detailed in court filings that have not been previously reported. Court records also contain an earlier episode in which both Shanahan and his wife alleged they were assaulted by one another and she was arrested.

The Defense Department has long struggled with its own responses to domestic violence, and it has faced a fresh wave of criticism since shortly after Shanahan became deputy secretary of defense in July 2017.

In November of that year, an airman who had been court-martialed for assaulting his wife and stepson killed 26 people and wounded 22 others in a Texas church. A Defense Department investigation later faulted the Air Force for repeatedly failing to submit the serviceman’s fingerprints to a civilian database, which it said should have prevented him from purchasing the firearms used in the mass shooting.

Last month, the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General admonished the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, saying they failed for decades to consistently follow policies requiring military police to thoroughly process crime scenes and to interview witnesses following allegations of nonsexual domestic abuse. The watchdog said that in 180 of 219 cases it reviewed, the branches failed to submit criminal histories and fingerprints of offending servicemen to civilian authorities.

Shanahan said his personal experience with domestic violence has taught him there are no simple policy prescriptions. He said domestic violence rates in the military will only improve if the services can change the way they talk about the stresses of serving in the armed forces in a more honest and natural way.

“There’s not one size that fits all, I mean, it’s a very complicated issue,” he said. “It’s not as simple as take this training class or apply these resources, or, you know, look for these kinds of symptoms. I mean, it’s not that simple. There are all sorts of dimensions, whether it’s mental health, or addiction, or stress in the home. It’s a very toxic concoction.

“The thing that’s probably, like a lot of other issues . . . is having a buddy system of people who really care about you and can intervene. What I’ve learned is extremely important.”

‘I was seeing stars’

Patrick Shanahan, 56, climbed the ranks at Boeing over more than two decades, becoming vice president and general manager of the corporation’s commercial airplane program in 2008. An exacting, hard-charging executive who worked grueling hours, he earned the sobriquet “Mr. Fix It” for his ability to turn around sputtering projects worth billions of dollars, such as the aerospace giant’s delayed 787 Dreamliner program. 

By 2010, Shanahan was earning more than $935,000 annually in salary and bonuses, court records show. 

But there was turbulence in Shanahan’s personal life with his wife of 24 years. Shanahan and two of his children interviewed by The Post said Kimberley was growing more erratic. One Thanksgiving, she threw the entire dinner on the floor, saying the family did not appreciate her efforts, they said. A birthday cake his daughter baked for Patrick Shanahan was similarly destroyed, they said.

Things culminated with a physical dispute in August 2010. According to Patrick Shanahan, the incident began when he was lying in bed, following an argument with Kimberley Shanahan about their oldest child.

Shanahan said he had his eyes closed, trying to fall asleep and his wife came in the bedroom and punched him in the face, then more times in his torso.

“I was seeing stars,” Shanahan said, but he didn’t react, saying he believes that only further enraged his wife.

She then began throwing her husband’s clothes out of a window, according to police and court records, and tried to set them on fire, with a propane tank she couldn’t dislodge from a barbecue grill and later with burning paper towels.

Another physical altercation ensued, with police records indicating Kimberley Shanahan swung at Patrick Shanahan. She called the police and claimed that he punched her in the stomach, an allegation he denies. 

When officers arrived, they found him with a bloody nose and scratches on his face, police records show. Authorities charged his wife with domestic violence.

Shanahan later dropped the charges.

Patrick Shanahan soon filed for divorce. The file would grow to more than 1,500 pages.

‘It was a hard time to see your son’

Kimberley Shanahan won custody of the children and moved to Florida. Patrick Shanahan remained in Seattle, but the couple’s eldest daughter would soon rejoin him to attend college.

Shortly after midnight on Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2011, Kimberley Shanahan and William got into “a verbal dispute” over her suspicion that the 17-year-old was in a romantic relationship with a 36-year-old woman, according to a police report.

According to police, just after 1:30 a.m., William “shoved and pinned his mother against a bathroom wall” before grabbing a $400 Nike composite baseball bat “to swing at her head,” striking her multiple times. 

“I attempted to run away from Will, but as I reached the laundry room, he struck me with the bat in the back of my head,” Kimberley Shanahan wrote in a court filing in the divorce case. “The last thing I remember from before I lost consciousness is the impact of the bat, and blood gushing everywhere.”

William, Sarasota police wrote, struck several blows to his mother’s head and torso and left her “to lie in a pool of blood” and then “unplugged the landline phone cord depriving the victim and [the younger brother] the use of 911 to render aid.”

As William fled the home, situated in an exclusive, barrier-island development called Bird Key just outside Sarasota, he “tossed a bottle of rubbing alcohol” to his younger brother and told him “you clean her up,” according to the police report.

The younger brother called 911 from a neighbor’s phone, according to police records.

Within hours, William contacted his father who immediately booked a predawn flight to Florida, according to court records and documents provided by the Pentagon.

Kimberley Shanahan was hospitalized early that morning and later required surgery, she wrote in a divorce filing. Among her injuries were a fractured skull and elbow, according to the police report.

While she was in the hospital, authorities began to search for William, according to records released to The Post by Sarasota police. 

Police distributed a photo of Shanahan to patrol cars on Bird Key. They tried to track William’s cellphone, but it appeared to be turned off, police wrote. They canvassed a local park and bridges to the mainland. They searched a local yacht club. But there was no trace of him, according to records.

Patrick Shanahan landed in Florida just before 5 p.m. on Wednesday. He arranged to stay with William in a hotel. 

“Mr. Shanahan’s response when he learned of the assault was to book Will a hotel room,” Kimberley Shanahan wrote. 

Shanahan said it’s a bit of a blur.

“It was a hard time to see your son, hopefully you’ll never be in that spot some day,” he said. “I wasn’t hiding. We got a hotel and talked to the attorney and we just camped out.”

Shanahan did not visit the hospital where his ex-wife was taken, his ex-wife later wrote in a divorce filing. Instead, over four days that included Thanksgiving, Shanahan worked to assemble a defense team and to enlist family members and friends to attend an initial hearing to try to persuade a judge to let his son stay out of jail while he fought the charges.

Derek Byrd, head of a well-known Sarasota defense firm hired by Patrick Shanahan to represent his son in the criminal case, said in an interview that the elder Shanahan acted appropriately by not contacting police until his son could consult a defense attorney, a process that was delayed by the Thanksgiving holiday.

Byrd also said that Patrick Shanahan was not aware that police were searching for his son in the days after the attack.

“I don’t think Pat handled that time frame inappropriately,” Byrd said in an interview. “I think he was just doing what a reasonable dad should probably do. I’m sure the timeline looks bad on paper, but he didn’t do anything that I consider out of the ordinary, and he wasn’t hiding Will.”

Byrd said Patrick Shanahan first contacted his firm within a day of arriving in Florida, either Wednesday night or Thursday, which was Thanksgiving. He said a lawyer from the firm could not meet with the Shanahans until Friday morning, after the holiday.

Later on Friday, another attorney from the firm contacted the detective handling the case, Det. Kenneth Halpin.

According to the detective’s report, the attorney said he would arrange for the younger Shanahan to turn himself in — after two more days, on Sunday evening, Nov. 27. 

“Detective Halpin trusted us to do that,” Byrd told The Post. “He said, ‘Fine.’ ”

Halpin told The Post that he could not recall the conversation but would have likely cast it differently:

“If someone calls and says they’re going to turn in a suspect on a Sunday night and he’s already lawyered up with someone who has a reputation like Byrd, for being on TV, what can you do? You can’t force an attorney to turn in his client,” Halpin said, adding that: “I’m sure I would have also told him that there’s paper out for him, so they’re still going to snatch him up, if he’s found.”

That Sunday night, Patrick Shanahan drove William to a police station to surrender, according to police records and a timeline of events prepared by the Pentagon.

His mother attended his court appearance the next morning. 

“My neighbor took me to the court hearing and both of us were shocked to see Pat in the courtroom,” she wrote in the divorce, saying she had believed until then that he had been in Seattle.

‘He doesn’t believe in violence’

Patrick Shanahan and Byrd came to the hearing prepared to plead for the younger Shanahan to remain out of custody, citing his baseball career at an exclusive youth sports academy and prep school attended by sons and daughters of major league athletes.

“He’s a college baseball prospect. He has dreams. He has a future. His father is an executive of Boeing,” Byrd said, according to an audio recording that the court released to The Post. “If he has to sit in jail for 21 days, not only is that going to traumatize him, he’s not going to finish the semester, probably get kicked off the baseball team . . . everything is going to be over for him.”

Patrick Shanahan also vouched for his son.

“He doesn’t believe in violence,” he told the judge, “I’ve never seen him act aggressively toward his brother or any other family members, so it’s a shock to me, what has happened.”

The judge declined to release William Shanahan, calling pictures of the crime scene “horrendous.” 

He was initially charged with two felonies, aggravated battery and tampering with a victim, and faced up to 15 years in prison.

In the divorce filing is the four-page memo Patrick Shanahan wrote at the time.

It lists “mitigating circumstances” that should be considered in evaluating the alleged assault.

A Pentagon spokesman provided a copy of the email containing the memo retained by Shanahan’s brother-in-law, showing it had been sent on Dec. 8, 2011, two weeks after the attack, and 10 days after Patrick Shanahan was present at the court hearing with his injured ex-wife.

First, Patrick Shanahan wrote, his 17-year-old son had “acted in self-defense.”

“She fueled the situation by berating him repeatedly in his room in a manner that escalated emotionally and physically,” he wrote.

The memo continues, alleging a history of substance abuse, emotional abuse and violent tendencies by Kimberley Shanahan. “Over the last 7+ years I have worked as much as possible, partially out of a desire to avoid inevitable conflicts with Kim,” Shanahan wrote. It casts his ex-wife as the instigator in conflicts with him and their children. “It appears that when I was not around to yell at, she started becoming intensely focused on berating, terrorizing and beat them down emotionally.”

Kimberley Shanahan disputed those characterizations.

“I have always been a very loving and dedicated mom,” she wrote in a court filing responding to the memo, “and I have never emotionally abused any of my children for any period of time.”

Kevin Cameron, Kimberley Shanahan’s brother, said he was not bothered by Patrick Shanahan’s memo because he believed Shanahan wrote it before he had all of the facts about the assault.

“If anything, I believe Pat fully understands and is better equipped to deal with domestic violence than most people,” Cameron wrote in a letter to The Post. “He has seen it. He has lived it. He understands that domestic violence is real and prevalent. He understands that it can impact anyone of any age, gender, race and socioeconomic status.”

‘We moved on’

Kris Roberts, a police officer who assisted in the search for William Shanahan, recalled that after the arrest, his father was a “hindrance” in a follow-up matter, as police investigated whether there had been an inappropriate relationship between the adult woman and William. Under Florida law, William was too young at the time to have had a consenting sexual relationship with the woman. Roberts, a retired detective with the Longboat Key Police Department, said the father, whom she could not remember by name, would not turn over his son’s cellphone. 

After the surrender to police, “his father would not talk to me; he wasn’t helping,” Roberts said. “I remember he had a West Coast address, Seattle maybe, and when he left, the son’s cellphone was just gone.” Roberts said she believes Patrick Shanahan took his son’s cellphone back to Seattle with him.

Roberts said that without the cooperation of the father, the investigation fell apart. “We only had one love letter between them, but it didn’t speak to anything sexual,” Roberts said. The adult woman “soon lawyered up, too, and we moved on.”

Byrd, the attorney for William Shanahan; an attorney who represents Patrick Shanahan in Seattle; and a Shanahan spokesman said they were not aware of a formal request for the cellphone.

Prosecutors would go on to charge William as an adult with one felony: aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. He pleaded down to a third-degree felony, and in 2012, a state prosecutor agreed to a “withhold of adjudication,” curtailing the length of the sentence and probation. The post-sentencing maneuver is not recognized outside of Florida and William’s record could not be sealed or expunged in the state because it involved a violent domestic assault.

William was ordered to spend 18 months at a Florida Sheriff’s Youth Ranch and sentenced to four years’ probation. Both penalties were later reduced.

The following year, in 2013, William enrolled at the University of Washington, according to his LinkedIn page. His father had recently joined the university’s board of regents. The family had other ties to the school. Patrick’s father, Michael, had served as police chief for the university for more than two decades. 

William graduated last June with a degree in political science, a university spokesman said.

Kimberley Shanahan lost custody of the couple’s youngest child in 2014, when a judge wrote that she had “engaged in abusive use of conflict that is seriously detrimental” to the child. According to multiple accounts, she is now estranged from all three of her children. At his last confirmation hearing, to become deputy secretary of defense in June 2017, all three children were sitting behind Patrick Shanahan.

None of the senators asked him about domestic violence.

What a lovely family /sarcasm.

[47of74]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Wow, Shanahan is not going to be the official nominee: "As Trump’s defense pick withdraws, he addresses violent domestic incidents"

  Hide contents

In the months that he has served as President Trump’s acting secretary of defense, Patrick Shanahan has worked to keep domestic violence incidents within his family private. His wife was arrested after punching him in the face, and his son was arrested after a separate incident in which he hit his mother with a baseball bat. Public disclosure of the nearly decade-old episodes would re-traumatize his young adult children, Shanahan said.

On Tuesday, Trump announced in a tweet that Shanahan would not be going through with the nomination process, which had been delayed by an unusually lengthy FBI background check, “so that he can devote more time to his family.”

Shanahan spoke publicly about the incidents in interviews with The Washington Post on Monday and Tuesday.

“Bad things can happen to good families . . . and this is a tragedy, really,” Shanahan said. Dredging up the episode publicly, he said, “will ruin my son’s life.”

In November 2011, Shanahan rushed to defend his then-17-year-old son, William Shanahan, in the days after the teenager brutally beat his mother. The attack had left Shanahan’s ex-wife unconscious in a pool of blood, her skull fractured, and with internal injuries that required surgery, according to court and police records.

Two weeks later, Shanahan sent his ex-wife’s brother a memo arguing that his son had acted in self-defense.

“Use of a baseball bat in self-defense will likely be viewed as an imbalance of force,” Shanahan wrote. “However, Will’s mother harassed him for nearly three hours before the incident.”

Details of the incidents have started to emerge in media reports about his nomination, including a USA Today report Tuesday about the punching incident in 2010.

In an hour-long interview Monday night at his apartment in Virginia, Shanahan, who has been responding to questions from The Post about the incidents since January, said he wrote the memo in the hours after his son’s attack, before he knew the full extent of his ex-wife’s injuries. He said it was to prepare for his son’s initial court appearance and that he never intended for anyone other than his son’s attorneys to read it.

“That document literally was, I sat down with [my son] right away, and being an engineer at an aerospace company, you write down what are all of the mitigating reasons something could have happened. You know, just what’s the list of things that could have happened?”

As he later wrote in the divorce case, Shanahan said Monday that he does not believe there can be any justification for an assault with a baseball bat, but he went further in the interview, saying he now regrets writing the passage.

“Quite frankly it’s difficult to relive that moment and the passage was difficult for me to read. I was wrong to write those three sentences,” Shanahan said.

“I have never believed Will’s attack on his mother was an act of self-defense or justified. I don’t believe violence is appropriate ever, and certainly never any justification for attacking someone with a baseball bat.”

Kimberley Shanahan, who has since changed her name to Kimberley Jordinson, has not responded to repeated efforts since January by reporters to contact her via email, text, phone and social media seeking comment about the incidents.

Patrick Shanahan’s response when his family was split by acts of domestic violence — including steps he took to manage his son’s surrender to police and to try to keep him out of jail — is detailed in court filings that have not been previously reported. Court records also contain an earlier episode in which both Shanahan and his wife alleged they were assaulted by one another and she was arrested.

The Defense Department has long struggled with its own responses to domestic violence, and it has faced a fresh wave of criticism since shortly after Shanahan became deputy secretary of defense in July 2017.

In November of that year, an airman who had been court-martialed for assaulting his wife and stepson killed 26 people and wounded 22 others in a Texas church. A Defense Department investigation later faulted the Air Force for repeatedly failing to submit the serviceman’s fingerprints to a civilian database, which it said should have prevented him from purchasing the firearms used in the mass shooting.

Last month, the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General admonished the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, saying they failed for decades to consistently follow policies requiring military police to thoroughly process crime scenes and to interview witnesses following allegations of nonsexual domestic abuse. The watchdog said that in 180 of 219 cases it reviewed, the branches failed to submit criminal histories and fingerprints of offending servicemen to civilian authorities.

Shanahan said his personal experience with domestic violence has taught him there are no simple policy prescriptions. He said domestic violence rates in the military will only improve if the services can change the way they talk about the stresses of serving in the armed forces in a more honest and natural way.

“There’s not one size that fits all, I mean, it’s a very complicated issue,” he said. “It’s not as simple as take this training class or apply these resources, or, you know, look for these kinds of symptoms. I mean, it’s not that simple. There are all sorts of dimensions, whether it’s mental health, or addiction, or stress in the home. It’s a very toxic concoction.

“The thing that’s probably, like a lot of other issues . . . is having a buddy system of people who really care about you and can intervene. What I’ve learned is extremely important.”

‘I was seeing stars’

Patrick Shanahan, 56, climbed the ranks at Boeing over more than two decades, becoming vice president and general manager of the corporation’s commercial airplane program in 2008. An exacting, hard-charging executive who worked grueling hours, he earned the sobriquet “Mr. Fix It” for his ability to turn around sputtering projects worth billions of dollars, such as the aerospace giant’s delayed 787 Dreamliner program. 

By 2010, Shanahan was earning more than $935,000 annually in salary and bonuses, court records show. 

But there was turbulence in Shanahan’s personal life with his wife of 24 years. Shanahan and two of his children interviewed by The Post said Kimberley was growing more erratic. One Thanksgiving, she threw the entire dinner on the floor, saying the family did not appreciate her efforts, they said. A birthday cake his daughter baked for Patrick Shanahan was similarly destroyed, they said.

Things culminated with a physical dispute in August 2010. According to Patrick Shanahan, the incident began when he was lying in bed, following an argument with Kimberley Shanahan about their oldest child.

Shanahan said he had his eyes closed, trying to fall asleep and his wife came in the bedroom and punched him in the face, then more times in his torso.

“I was seeing stars,” Shanahan said, but he didn’t react, saying he believes that only further enraged his wife.

She then began throwing her husband’s clothes out of a window, according to police and court records, and tried to set them on fire, with a propane tank she couldn’t dislodge from a barbecue grill and later with burning paper towels.

Another physical altercation ensued, with police records indicating Kimberley Shanahan swung at Patrick Shanahan. She called the police and claimed that he punched her in the stomach, an allegation he denies. 

When officers arrived, they found him with a bloody nose and scratches on his face, police records show. Authorities charged his wife with domestic violence.

Shanahan later dropped the charges.

Patrick Shanahan soon filed for divorce. The file would grow to more than 1,500 pages.

‘It was a hard time to see your son’

Kimberley Shanahan won custody of the children and moved to Florida. Patrick Shanahan remained in Seattle, but the couple’s eldest daughter would soon rejoin him to attend college.

Shortly after midnight on Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2011, Kimberley Shanahan and William got into “a verbal dispute” over her suspicion that the 17-year-old was in a romantic relationship with a 36-year-old woman, according to a police report.

According to police, just after 1:30 a.m., William “shoved and pinned his mother against a bathroom wall” before grabbing a $400 Nike composite baseball bat “to swing at her head,” striking her multiple times. 

“I attempted to run away from Will, but as I reached the laundry room, he struck me with the bat in the back of my head,” Kimberley Shanahan wrote in a court filing in the divorce case. “The last thing I remember from before I lost consciousness is the impact of the bat, and blood gushing everywhere.”

William, Sarasota police wrote, struck several blows to his mother’s head and torso and left her “to lie in a pool of blood” and then “unplugged the landline phone cord depriving the victim and [the younger brother] the use of 911 to render aid.”

As William fled the home, situated in an exclusive, barrier-island development called Bird Key just outside Sarasota, he “tossed a bottle of rubbing alcohol” to his younger brother and told him “you clean her up,” according to the police report.

The younger brother called 911 from a neighbor’s phone, according to police records.

Within hours, William contacted his father who immediately booked a predawn flight to Florida, according to court records and documents provided by the Pentagon.

Kimberley Shanahan was hospitalized early that morning and later required surgery, she wrote in a divorce filing. Among her injuries were a fractured skull and elbow, according to the police report.

While she was in the hospital, authorities began to search for William, according to records released to The Post by Sarasota police. 

Police distributed a photo of Shanahan to patrol cars on Bird Key. They tried to track William’s cellphone, but it appeared to be turned off, police wrote. They canvassed a local park and bridges to the mainland. They searched a local yacht club. But there was no trace of him, according to records.

Patrick Shanahan landed in Florida just before 5 p.m. on Wednesday. He arranged to stay with William in a hotel. 

“Mr. Shanahan’s response when he learned of the assault was to book Will a hotel room,” Kimberley Shanahan wrote. 

Shanahan said it’s a bit of a blur.

“It was a hard time to see your son, hopefully you’ll never be in that spot some day,” he said. “I wasn’t hiding. We got a hotel and talked to the attorney and we just camped out.”

Shanahan did not visit the hospital where his ex-wife was taken, his ex-wife later wrote in a divorce filing. Instead, over four days that included Thanksgiving, Shanahan worked to assemble a defense team and to enlist family members and friends to attend an initial hearing to try to persuade a judge to let his son stay out of jail while he fought the charges.

Derek Byrd, head of a well-known Sarasota defense firm hired by Patrick Shanahan to represent his son in the criminal case, said in an interview that the elder Shanahan acted appropriately by not contacting police until his son could consult a defense attorney, a process that was delayed by the Thanksgiving holiday.

Byrd also said that Patrick Shanahan was not aware that police were searching for his son in the days after the attack.

“I don’t think Pat handled that time frame inappropriately,” Byrd said in an interview. “I think he was just doing what a reasonable dad should probably do. I’m sure the timeline looks bad on paper, but he didn’t do anything that I consider out of the ordinary, and he wasn’t hiding Will.”

Byrd said Patrick Shanahan first contacted his firm within a day of arriving in Florida, either Wednesday night or Thursday, which was Thanksgiving. He said a lawyer from the firm could not meet with the Shanahans until Friday morning, after the holiday.

Later on Friday, another attorney from the firm contacted the detective handling the case, Det. Kenneth Halpin.

According to the detective’s report, the attorney said he would arrange for the younger Shanahan to turn himself in — after two more days, on Sunday evening, Nov. 27. 

“Detective Halpin trusted us to do that,” Byrd told The Post. “He said, ‘Fine.’ ”

Halpin told The Post that he could not recall the conversation but would have likely cast it differently:

“If someone calls and says they’re going to turn in a suspect on a Sunday night and he’s already lawyered up with someone who has a reputation like Byrd, for being on TV, what can you do? You can’t force an attorney to turn in his client,” Halpin said, adding that: “I’m sure I would have also told him that there’s paper out for him, so they’re still going to snatch him up, if he’s found.”

That Sunday night, Patrick Shanahan drove William to a police station to surrender, according to police records and a timeline of events prepared by the Pentagon.

His mother attended his court appearance the next morning. 

“My neighbor took me to the court hearing and both of us were shocked to see Pat in the courtroom,” she wrote in the divorce, saying she had believed until then that he had been in Seattle.

‘He doesn’t believe in violence’

Patrick Shanahan and Byrd came to the hearing prepared to plead for the younger Shanahan to remain out of custody, citing his baseball career at an exclusive youth sports academy and prep school attended by sons and daughters of major league athletes.

“He’s a college baseball prospect. He has dreams. He has a future. His father is an executive of Boeing,” Byrd said, according to an audio recording that the court released to The Post. “If he has to sit in jail for 21 days, not only is that going to traumatize him, he’s not going to finish the semester, probably get kicked off the baseball team . . . everything is going to be over for him.”

Patrick Shanahan also vouched for his son.

“He doesn’t believe in violence,” he told the judge, “I’ve never seen him act aggressively toward his brother or any other family members, so it’s a shock to me, what has happened.”

The judge declined to release William Shanahan, calling pictures of the crime scene “horrendous.” 

He was initially charged with two felonies, aggravated battery and tampering with a victim, and faced up to 15 years in prison.

In the divorce filing is the four-page memo Patrick Shanahan wrote at the time.

It lists “mitigating circumstances” that should be considered in evaluating the alleged assault.

A Pentagon spokesman provided a copy of the email containing the memo retained by Shanahan’s brother-in-law, showing it had been sent on Dec. 8, 2011, two weeks after the attack, and 10 days after Patrick Shanahan was present at the court hearing with his injured ex-wife.

First, Patrick Shanahan wrote, his 17-year-old son had “acted in self-defense.”

“She fueled the situation by berating him repeatedly in his room in a manner that escalated emotionally and physically,” he wrote.

The memo continues, alleging a history of substance abuse, emotional abuse and violent tendencies by Kimberley Shanahan. “Over the last 7+ years I have worked as much as possible, partially out of a desire to avoid inevitable conflicts with Kim,” Shanahan wrote. It casts his ex-wife as the instigator in conflicts with him and their children. “It appears that when I was not around to yell at, she started becoming intensely focused on berating, terrorizing and beat them down emotionally.”

Kimberley Shanahan disputed those characterizations.

“I have always been a very loving and dedicated mom,” she wrote in a court filing responding to the memo, “and I have never emotionally abused any of my children for any period of time.”

Kevin Cameron, Kimberley Shanahan’s brother, said he was not bothered by Patrick Shanahan’s memo because he believed Shanahan wrote it before he had all of the facts about the assault.

“If anything, I believe Pat fully understands and is better equipped to deal with domestic violence than most people,” Cameron wrote in a letter to The Post. “He has seen it. He has lived it. He understands that domestic violence is real and prevalent. He understands that it can impact anyone of any age, gender, race and socioeconomic status.”

‘We moved on’

Kris Roberts, a police officer who assisted in the search for William Shanahan, recalled that after the arrest, his father was a “hindrance” in a follow-up matter, as police investigated whether there had been an inappropriate relationship between the adult woman and William. Under Florida law, William was too young at the time to have had a consenting sexual relationship with the woman. Roberts, a retired detective with the Longboat Key Police Department, said the father, whom she could not remember by name, would not turn over his son’s cellphone. 

After the surrender to police, “his father would not talk to me; he wasn’t helping,” Roberts said. “I remember he had a West Coast address, Seattle maybe, and when he left, the son’s cellphone was just gone.” Roberts said she believes Patrick Shanahan took his son’s cellphone back to Seattle with him.

Roberts said that without the cooperation of the father, the investigation fell apart. “We only had one love letter between them, but it didn’t speak to anything sexual,” Roberts said. The adult woman “soon lawyered up, too, and we moved on.”

Byrd, the attorney for William Shanahan; an attorney who represents Patrick Shanahan in Seattle; and a Shanahan spokesman said they were not aware of a formal request for the cellphone.

Prosecutors would go on to charge William as an adult with one felony: aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. He pleaded down to a third-degree felony, and in 2012, a state prosecutor agreed to a “withhold of adjudication,” curtailing the length of the sentence and probation. The post-sentencing maneuver is not recognized outside of Florida and William’s record could not be sealed or expunged in the state because it involved a violent domestic assault.

William was ordered to spend 18 months at a Florida Sheriff’s Youth Ranch and sentenced to four years’ probation. Both penalties were later reduced.

The following year, in 2013, William enrolled at the University of Washington, according to his LinkedIn page. His father had recently joined the university’s board of regents. The family had other ties to the school. Patrick’s father, Michael, had served as police chief for the university for more than two decades. 

William graduated last June with a degree in political science, a university spokesman said.

Kimberley Shanahan lost custody of the couple’s youngest child in 2014, when a judge wrote that she had “engaged in abusive use of conflict that is seriously detrimental” to the child. According to multiple accounts, she is now estranged from all three of her children. At his last confirmation hearing, to become deputy secretary of defense in June 2017, all three children were sitting behind Patrick Shanahan.

None of the senators asked him about domestic violence.

What a lovely family /sarcasm.

Why doesn't fuck head just go to the nearest death row and get his cabinet nominees from there?   They wouldn't be much worse than the fuck sticks he picks out.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

OMFG: "Katharine Gorka to be new spokeswoman for Customs and Border Protection"

Spoiler

As President Trump threatens massive arrests and deportations of undocumented immigrants, Customs and Border Protection is expected to name Katharine Gorka, the wife of fired Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka, as its new spokeswoman.

Gorka and her husband — the combative former adviser to Trump who still vigorously defends the president — share hard-line views on national security and have made incendiary remarks about Muslims that have been seen as promoting Islamophobia.

In her new job, Gorka will become spokeswoman for the agency responsible for implementing the White House’s goal of severely limiting the number of migrants who cross the southern border.

The news was first reported by CNN.

Trump first hired Gorka to work as a senior adviser in the Department of Homeland Security several months into his presidency. Politico called the Gorkas a power couple “driving Trump’s national security policy,” shortly after the president issued his first executive order banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

Months later, after the deadly white-supremacist protests in Charlottesville in August 2017, questions arose about Katharine Gorka’s role in eliminating funding for Life After Hate, a program used to help neo-Nazis and white supremacists leave those groups.

At the time, a DHS spokeswoman described Gorka’s role at the agency to HuffPost as focused on “all forms of extremism,” including “efforts to address everything from global jihadists threats to domestic terrorists.”

Gorka’s husband left his job at the White House after the Charlottesville violence, which corresponded with the departure of chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon.

Gorka’s responsibilities at the Department of Homeland Security weren’t entirely clear, and so in March of this year the liberal advocacy group Democracy Forward sued the government for more specific information about what she does at the agency.

“We’re suing to find out whether Gorka’s extreme and biased views are driving Homeland Security resources away from real threats,” the group wrote.

Both Gorkas wrote for Brietbart News before joining the Trump administration, often focused on Islamist extremists.

That thudding noise is me banging my head on my desk.

[Howl]

21 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

OMFG: "Katharine Gorka to be new spokeswoman for Customs and Border Protection"

  Reveal hidden contents

As President Trump threatens massive arrests and deportations of undocumented immigrants, Customs and Border Protection is expected to name Katharine Gorka, the wife of fired Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka, as its new spokeswoman.

Gorka and her husband — the combative former adviser to Trump who still vigorously defends the president — share hard-line views on national security and have made incendiary remarks about Muslims that have been seen as promoting Islamophobia.

In her new job, Gorka will become spokeswoman for the agency responsible for implementing the White House’s goal of severely limiting the number of migrants who cross the southern border.

The news was first reported by CNN.

Trump first hired Gorka to work as a senior adviser in the Department of Homeland Security several months into his presidency. Politico called the Gorkas a power couple “driving Trump’s national security policy,” shortly after the president issued his first executive order banning people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

Months later, after the deadly white-supremacist protests in Charlottesville in August 2017, questions arose about Katharine Gorka’s role in eliminating funding for Life After Hate, a program used to help neo-Nazis and white supremacists leave those groups.

At the time, a DHS spokeswoman described Gorka’s role at the agency to HuffPost as focused on “all forms of extremism,” including “efforts to address everything from global jihadists threats to domestic terrorists.”

Gorka’s husband left his job at the White House after the Charlottesville violence, which corresponded with the departure of chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon.

Gorka’s responsibilities at the Department of Homeland Security weren’t entirely clear, and so in March of this year the liberal advocacy group Democracy Forward sued the government for more specific information about what she does at the agency.

“We’re suing to find out whether Gorka’s extreme and biased views are driving Homeland Security resources away from real threats,” the group wrote.

Both Gorkas wrote for Brietbart News before joining the Trump administration, often focused on Islamist extremists.

That thudding noise is me banging my head on my desk.

Sweet Rufus Reindeer, when you think it can't get worse, much worse, really awful, a damn trainwreck, an epic natural disaster, this comes along. 

I'm just thinking how hideous this news will be for the people who have to work with her. That pounding sound is the sound of hundreds of people at CBP pounding their heads on their desks in unison. 

She used to write for Breitbart.  Are there any skeletons in THAT closet?

JFC, Imma have to take to drink.  Iced tea for now, but who knows...

The entire Shanahan thing is just sad.  If you read the entire WaPo article, it sound like his wife is mentally ill.  But again, these problems should have made Shanahan ineligible for his initial high position at DoD and definitely should have knocked him out of contention for SecDef before he was ever Acting SecDef.  

So now, we have a compromised (however you want to think about it) Acting SecDef  and Pompeo and Bolton are trying to ignite a war with Iran.  

[GreyhoundFan]

Why am I not surprised? "Trump’s U.N. nominee was ‘absent’ ambassador"

Spoiler

President Donald Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to the United Nations — current U.S. Ambassador to Canada Kelly Craft — was frequently absent from her post in Ottawa, raising questions about her level of engagement with the job, according to officials in the United States and Canada.

State Department officials acknowledge her frequent travels outside of Canada, but said many of the trips were related to the new North American trade deal. Her absences from her official post are likely to be an issue in her confirmation hearing, which is scheduled for Wednesday.

Federal Aviation Administration records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by POLITICO show that a private jet registered to Craft’s husband and used by the ambassador made 128 flights between the United States and Canada during a 15-month span of her tenure in Ottawa, the equivalent of a round trip once a week.

Some of the trips correspond with dates of events Craft attended in her home state of Kentucky — such as the Kentucky Derby and a media interview at a University of Kentucky basketball facility named for her husband, Joe Craft, a coal billionaire — but neither of the Crafts, through their spokespeople, would confirm how many of the flights involved her travel.

The issue of her travels is likely to be particularly relevant at her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee because Craft lacks the lengthy political or diplomatic experience of most former ambassadors to the United Nations. A 57-year-old business consultant from Lexington, Ky., Craft served from 2007 to 2008 as an alternate delegate to the U.N. under President George W. Bush but otherwise spent her career in the private sector. Her year-and-a-half tenure in Ottawa represents her prime credential for serving as the lead representative to the U.N., a position that takes on added importance at moments of international crisis or brinkmanship.

Hill aides say they are concerned about how often she was away from her post in Ottawa, and whether the trips to the United States were for personal rather than official business.

A Democratic aide who has spoken with current and former senior officials in the U.S. government said they depicted the ambassador as “frequently absent from the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, and in some cases for extended periods of time.” People familiar with Craft’s tenure in Ottawa have told congressional staff that Craft has very little presence on the city’s diplomatic scene, rarely speaking to media or appearing at public events, the Democratic aide told POLITICO.

“We are concerned that the president has nominated someone who fails to show up at work on a regular basis,” the Democratic aide said.

In addition, a former U.S. official who is in touch with State Department leaders said Craft was viewed around Foggy Bottom as an “absent ambassador” at the embassy in Ottawa and that the mission was often placed in the hands of her deputy while Craft attended to personal business and domestic politics in the United States.

Ambassadors are required to spend no more than 26 work days a year away from their posts on personal leave without first obtaining special State Department approval, according to the department’s Foreign Affairs manual. Though Craft’s absences from the embassy on work days are recorded on her schedule, neither the embassy nor the State Department officials would provide records of how many days she was present in Ottawa.

A State Department spokesperson said in a prepared statement that all of Craft’s personal and official travel “to and from the United States, including numerous trips associated with USMCA [trade deal] negotiations, were pre-approved by the State Department and complied with all Department travel guidelines. ... In addition, Ambassador Craft elected to cover all travel expenses from personal funds, saving the U.S. government substantial money.”

Her number of personal absences did not exceed department limits, the spokesperson said.

A senior member of the U.S. mission team in Canada, speaking with State Department approval to defend Craft’s performance, acknowledged that Craft left the embassy in the control of a separate chargé d’affaires “more times … than perhaps at any other embassy.”

The official, who has not worked at the embassy for the entirety of Craft’s tenure, said he could not characterize how many of Craft’s trips were for personal business, but said she was often in Washington for trade negotiations because “she was directly involved in being a bridge” between the two countries. She would also fly to other places in the United States to promote the trade deal, one of Trump’s top political priorities. At those times, she’d sometimes spend the weekend at her Kentucky home rather than return to Ottawa, which does not count toward the 26 days away from her post.

While on trade-related trips to the United States, the senior official said, she often missed ceremonial diplomatic events, such as celebrations of national holidays at other embassies in Ottawa, but “I think that was a trade-off that just had to be made, and I think she made the right call.”

The FAA records showed a total of 335 flights from Jan. 1, 2018 — two months after Craft took over as ambassador — to April 10, 2019, a month and a half after she was chosen by Trump to succeed former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley as U.N. ambassador. Trump’s first choice to replace Haley, former State Department spokeswoman and “Fox & Friends” anchor Heather Nauert, withdrew amid questions about her personal finances and criticism of her perceived lack of credentials.

Craft was also a surprising choice, given her relatively short tenure in Canada. She and her husband Joe, the 68-year-old CEO of Alliance Resource Partners LLC — the third-largest coal producer in the United States — married in 2016. Both are supporters of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who urged Trump to give her the U.N. appointment.

Starting shortly after she took up her post in Ottawa, flight records indicate that Joe Craft’s personal aircraft, a Cessna Citation Sovereign, made the equivalent of 64 round trips between the United States and Canada. An additional 38 flights took place within Canada, while 169 more were between U.S. destinations.

Kelly Craft’s office has not released her schedules, and the records don’t contain manifests showing who was on the plane during each flight. But many of the trips correspond to known appearances she made in Canada and the United States.

The intra-Canadian sojourns largely align with appearances Craft made in her capacity as ambassador. Pictures posted on Kelly Craft’s Twitter account show her husband present during visits to Calgary, Montreal and Toronto.

For example, flights on Sept. 10 and Sept. 11, 2018, from Ottawa to St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, and then on to Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador, correspond to a speech she made there to commemorate the town’s hosting of nearly 7,000 passengers from planes diverted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. And flights recorded to and from Calgary, Alberta, on July 5 and July 10, 2018, respectively, sync up with Kelly Craft’s appearance at the Calgary Stampede and a meeting with Alberta energy industry representatives. Joe Craft is pictured in one of her tweets bidding farewell to a U.S. consul general assigned to Calgary.

But the sheer number of trips between Canada and the U.S. — including 70 with Lexington as the origin or the destination — raise questions about how often Kelly Craft took leave from her job for personal business.

The ambassador sat for an interview with CBC Radio in October after the new NAFTA deal was announced. But the setting wasn’t Lornado, her official residence, or anywhere else in Canada — it was the Joe Craft Center, a basketball practice facility at the University of Kentucky.

Another Canadian media personality, CTV News’ Don Martin, complained at the end of his June 29, 2018, show that “embassy sources whisper” that the ambassador “is barely engaged in diplomatic connecting and mostly flying south on her husband's private jet.”

Some of the plane’s domestic flights landed or took off from the Washington area when Kelly Craft was known to be in the U.S. capital.

For example, the aircraft left Ottawa for Lexington on Sept. 29, 2018, then flew to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Sept. 30. On Oct. 1, Kelly Craft stood beside Trump and administration officials focused on trade to announce the updated North American free trade deal.

The aircraft occasionally went for significant stretches without landing in Ottawa or other Canadian cities.

It left Ottawa on July 27, 2018, and didn’t return to Canadian airspace until Aug. 13.

The plane departed Ottawa a week before Christmas in 2018 and didn’t land there again until Jan. 18, 2019.

Kelly Craft’s Twitter account was more active in the early days of her tenure, showcasing her work travels and personal hobbies. She also would occasionally tweet when she was in Kentucky, posting about attending the Kentucky Derby on May 5, 2018, after tweeting that she was “home in Kentucky for the weekend” on April 27, a Friday.

“Getting back to my Kentucky roots today with a quick trip home,” she tweeted on Feb. 15, 2018, about visiting a high school called Gatton Academy with her sister and the Bowling Green Chamber of Commerce, “before touring a U.S. business that has Canadian connections!”

Craft’s Twitter account also shows how she promoted Kentucky industries, both in visits to the U.S. and within Canada. She has touted Kentucky bourbon, horses and basketball, and shepherded a delegation from the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce through its trip to Canada, appearing with members in Quebec City, Montreal and Ottawa.

In May 2018, she spoke at the graduation ceremony for Craft Academy, a science and math high school named for Joe Craft and affiliated with Kentucky’s Morehead State University.

Seventeen flights between the U.S. and Canada also started or ended in Tulsa, where Joe Craft’s company, Alliance Resource Partners, is headquartered.

Government ethics and financial disclosure forms show that the Crafts own a 2009 Cessna 680 worth over $1 million that brings in rent or royalties worth between $100,001 and $1 million. A Lexington-based company affiliated with Joe Craft that is listed on those forms, JC Land LLC, as the owner of that Cessna, according to the FAA’s aircraft registry. Its tail number, N72UK, appears to be a nod to the Crafts’ alma mater, the University of Kentucky.

“He has his own transportation so he can drop in on a UK ballgame and then fly into Washington to meet with the Trump administration for breakfast the next morning,” Dave Adkisson, president of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, told POLITICO earlier this year. Adkisson visited the Crafts with the chamber’s board of directors in Canada last October.

Several elected Canadian officials said Craft was a personable and professional envoy who handled the curveballs Trump threw on trade well. But two members of Parliament told POLITICO that Craft kept a lower profile than past ambassadors to the country and didn’t seem as engaged as her predecessors.

“We’ve had previous ambassadors who toured all across Canada and who worked very closely, not just with the bureaucrats and the political machine, but also with the people of our country,” said Brian Masse, a member of the New Democratic Party and vice president of the Canada-U.S. interparliamentary group.

The last day included in the records — April 10, 2019 — shows Joe Craft’s plane flying from Ottawa to Dallas’ Love Field.

Kelly Craft was spotted at the Bush Center’s 2019 Forum on Leadership in Dallas on April 11.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Cuccinelli has already started his crap: "A Top Immigration Official Appears To Be Warning Asylum Officers About Border Screenings"

Spoiler

The newly appointed leader of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, Ken Cuccinelli, sent an email to staffers Tuesday in which he appeared to push asylum officers to stop allowing some people seeking refuge in the country passage at an initial screening at the border.

“Under our abused immigration system if an alien comes to the United States and claims a fear of return the alien is entitled to a credible fear screening by USCIS and a hearing by an immigration judge,” Cuccinelli wrote to USCIS staffers.

Cuccinelli began the message by relaying the number of apprehensions at the southwest border and that the system had reached a breaking point. He told staffers that USCIS needed to do its "part to help stem the crisis and better secure the homeland."

"Asylum officers, you took an oath to support and defend the constitution of the United States. As a public servant your role as an asylum officer requires faithful application of the law."

The acting director cited statistics used by the Trump administration about the individuals who do not show up for their immigration court hearings and those who do not end up being granted asylum.

Cuccinelli then told staffers, in an apparent warning, that the gulf between the number of individuals granted passage under the screening and those who are granted asylum by an immigration judge was wider than the “two legal standards would suggest.”

“Therefore, USCIS must, in full compliance with the law, make sure we are properly screening individuals who claim fear but nevertheless do not have a significant possibility of receiving a grant of asylum or another form of protection available under our nation’s laws,” he said.

Cuccinelli added that officers have tools to combat “frivolous claims” and to “ensure that [they] are upholding our nation’s laws by only making positive credible fear determinations in cases that have a significant possibility of success.”

One official at the Department of Homeland Security — of which USCIS is a part — said the email was “insane,” while former officials said the email was clearly a threat.

“I read this only in one way — a threat. A threat that asylum officers will be blamed by their new boss for the repeated failures of the Trump administration,” Ur Jaddou, a former chief counsel at USCIS, told BuzzFeed News. “This is an unbelievable threat and not something a director would normally ever send.”

Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, said Cuccinelli was trying to ramp up the pressure on officers in whatever way he could. His understanding of the law, however, was misguided, she said.

"The acting director is trying to place the burden of reducing the difference between the high level of credible-fear acceptances and the low level of ultimate asylum approvals on the shoulders of asylum officers," she said. "However, the reason for this difference can be traced back to Congress—which purposefully made a low bar for the credible-fear process—and the failure to provide counsel for asylum-seekers, which all but guarantees the majority will fail in the court system."

Pierce said the standard for being allowed initial entry into the country when claiming asylum in the screening was actually lower than Cuccinelli made it seem.

"To obtain asylum, applicants must establish that there is as little as a 10 percent chance that they will be persecuted on account of a protected ground," Pierce said. "To demonstrate a credible fear, applicants need only show a 'significant possibility' that they could establish at least that 10 percent chance.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

This sham administration won't rest until the government is left in tattered flames: "Trump administration threatens furloughs, layoffs if Congress doesn’t let it kill personnel agency"

Spoiler

The Trump administration is threatening to furlough — and possibly lay off — 150 employees at the federal personnel agency if Congress blocks its plan to eliminate the department.

The Office of Personnel Management is preparing to send the career employees home without pay starting on Oct. 1, according to an internal briefing document obtained by The Washington Post. The employees could formally be laid off after 30 days, administration officials confirmed.

The warning of staff cuts is the administration’s most dramatic move yet in an escalating jujitsu between Trump officials and Congress over the fate of the agency that manages the civilian federal workforce of 2.1 million.

Even as House Democrats and some Republicans signal that Congress is not going to break up the 5,565-employee department, the administration is moving forward in defiance. Trump appointees paint a dire picture of a corner of the government in financial free fall and failing to carry out its mission. They want a commitment from Congress by June 30 to agree to disband the agency — or they say they’ll be forced to trim staff.

“This is a crisis building for years,” Margaret Weichert, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget and acting OPM director, said in an interview.

“We believe a legislative solution would be the most straightforward answer,” she said. “But we’ve made it very clear we can’t wait without action.”

Weichert said the administration is “committed to structural change. We can’t just say that because something has been done a certain way for the last 40 years that that’s acceptable.” She confirmed the possible furloughs and layoffs and said they were “a last resort we are trying to avoid.”

Trump officials say that OPM is a broken agency that should be wiped clean and restarted. They cite security weaknesses that led to a massive data breach, inefficient hiring policies and a backlogged system of processing paperwork for retiring employees.

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), who leads a panel overseeing government operations on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said Weichert hasn’t made a business case to kill the agency.

“At the end of the day, we have to make sure the agency works better or functions better in another place,” he said, acknowledging that OPM has “done a terrible job with retiring employees.”

“I want to see how this plan is cheaper for the taxpayer and better for the federal workforce,” Lankford said. “It’s hard to get to a determination of how this makes things better.”

The proposed breakup would pull apart OPM and divide it among three other departments.

Most of its functions would move into the General Services Administration, the government’s real estate and procurement arm. OPM’s backlogged security clearance system already is shifting to the Defense Department, through legislation previously passed by Congress.

OPM’s leadership would shift from an agency director to a Senate-confirmed deputy in the GSA and a position within the White House budget office responsible for federal workforce policy that the president would appoint.

The plan to dismantle the agency was the brainchild of a senior career official at the budget office. Weichert, a private-sector executive focused on improving business operations before she joined the Trump administration, has committed to it with a vengeance.

She’s told her staff that she is “planning to play chicken with Congress,” according to three officials familiar with the comments.

Critics say she is deliberately starving the agency in order to kill it.

“This is not a proposal that says, ‘How do we prop up OPM so it carries out its mission?’ ” said Jeffrey Neal, former personnel chief at the Department of Homeland Security and now a senior vice president at ICF, a consulting firm. “It’s more like pushing it over the edge so it fails.”

Dozens of employees have quit or retired in recent months amid the uncertainty.

The administration has been laying the groundwork for more than a year to kill the department and merge its functions, and it has asked Congress to approve the transfer.

But the bold plan, the first time in modern history that a large federal department would disappear, has no buy-in from Democrats on Capitol Hill and their allies in the labor movement, who are smarting from more than two years of confrontation with President Trump’s get-tough, anti-union policies.

“After realizing they were not going to prevail on the merits of the proposal,” Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s panel on government operations, said in an email, “the Trump Administration is taking 150 federal employees hostage unless we consent to a plan that has no rationale and is nothing more than a political gambit to give the White House control of our long-standing merit-based civil service system.”

Weichert’s rationale for the furloughs is tied to the revenue OPM gets for the government’s background check system for employee security clearances. The system is shifting to the Defense Department on Oct. 1, with 2,500 to 3,000 staff departures to the Pentagon.

The transfer will leave a $70 million hole in OPM’s budget from lost revenue for the clearance checks. Weichert said all but $23 million can be made up through other sources. The shortfall would be covered by eliminating the 150 jobs in OPM.

But House Democrats are moving quickly to block Weichert. The House Appropriations Committee passed legislation last week that would forbid the administration from spending any money to “reorganize or transfer any function” from OPM or enter into any agreements to shift work currently done by the agency. The legislation also provides $43 million for the next fiscal year to make up for lost revenue from the security clearances.

That legislation has yet to clear Congress. Weichert said the extra money amounts to a Band-Aid and said she’s moving to have GSA take over the agency’s technology and personnel services it provides to other agencies on a reimbursable basis, amounting to hundreds of employees. Democrats say the moves require congressional approval and would not be legal.

Trump officials are in the process of withdrawing a longtime agreement that lets OPM independently operate its Washington headquarters at 1900 E St. NW. The withdrawal will make the GSA the agency’s landlord, charging higher overhead costs than OPM now pays on its own.

A report by a federal watchdog this week concluded that killing the agency would hinder, not ease, the long-standing retirement claims backlog.

“Potential changes in organizational affiliation, policy, budget and staff may make it difficult for OPM to plan for large-scale changes in its operations,” the Government Accountability Office said.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

You couldn't make this up: