Clarke passed over for cabinet
Homeland post goes to retired general
Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. has been passed over for the job of heading the Department of Homeland Security in President-elect Donald Trump’s administration.
Trump instead will name another retired military general on his staff by selecting retired Marine Gen. John Kelly to head the cabinet-level agency.
Meanwhile, Trump is expected to nominate Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, a source close to Pruitt has told The Associated Press. Pruitt has been a critic of the agency.
On the homeland security post, Clarke, who campaigned across the country for Trump, was reportedly one of six candidates in the running. The sheriff met with the presidentelect and a small collection of top advisers at Trump Tower on Nov. 28.
In a statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Clarke said he did not throw his support behind Trump in hopes of landing a job in Washington, D.C.
“President-elect Trump gets to decide who he wants to fill these positions,” Clarke said on Wednesday. “I like his decision on Gen. Kelly as I do all the others he’s made. Trump’s election was all that was important to me.”
Trump’s chief of staff, Wisconsinite Reince Priebus, said this week in an interview that Clarke is “someone we definitely want to be involved in the administration at some level.”
“I think he’s going to have opportunities,” Priebus told WTMJ-TV (Channel 4) earlier this week. Clarke has said he would take a position
in the Trump administration if offered one. The sheriff’s advisers are looking at a possible appointment to the National Security Council or as a liaison to the law enforcement community.
Kelly, 66, the former head of the U.S. Southern Command, would join retired generals James Mattis, nominated for defense secretary, and Michael Flynn, nominated for national security adviser, as members of Trump’s staff or cabinet.
A person familiar with the transition confirmed Kelly’s selection, speaking on condition of anonymity because it has not been made official.
During his years in the military, Kelly criticized various Obama administration positions, including security along the U.S.-Mexico border and closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He also raised concerns about maintaining the current standards to serve in combat roles in the military after the administration opened spots in combat units to women.
During his 40-year career in the Marine Corps, Kelly led troops into combat in Iraq; he also lost a son during the war in Afghanistan.
He retired earlier this year.
Created in the wake of 9/11, Homeland Security duties range from counterterrorism to enforcing immigration laws.
On the EPA nomination, Pruitt has been a booster of the fossil fuel industry and an outspoken critic of what he derides
as the EPA’s “activist agenda.” The 48-yearold Republican also denies the overwhelming scientific evidence that the Earth is warming and that man-made carbon emissions are to blame.
Representing his state, Pruitt has repeatedly sued the EPA to roll back environmental regulations and public health protections, including opposing the Clean Power Plan that seeks to limit planetwarming carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants.
In another move, Trump’s transition team said Wednesday that the president-elect has picked Terry Branstad, the long-serving Iowa governor who proved a
loyal and unflinching surrogate in the presidential race, to be the ambassador to China.
The choice of Branstad is likely to reassure Beijing, which has been rattled by Trump’s rhetoric about China and his breaking decades of protocol with his outreach to Taiwan. The Iowa governor has deep ties to China and a personal friendship with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
And Trump named the former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, Linda McMahon, to head the Small Business Administration.