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Trump to remove Mattis early
President names Patrick Shanahan acting defense secretary effective Jan. 1
President names Patrick Shanahan acting defense secretary two months ahead of planned departure.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Sunday that he is removing Defense Secretary Jim Mattis two months before his planned departure and installing
Patrick Shanahan as acting defense secretary.
Shanahan, a former Boeing executive who has been Mattis’ deputy at the Pentagon, will assume the top job on an acting capacity on Jan. 1, Trump said.
The president made the decision in reaction to negative news coverage, according to senior administration officials, one of whom said Trump was eager to retaliate against Mattis and show up the widely respected former general.
Unlike Mattis, Shanahan has not served in the military and has little foreign policy or government experience. Trump plans to conduct a wide-ranging search for a permanent replacement and is interested in candidates from outside the administration, one official said.
Mattis resigned in protest last week after Trump announced the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria over the strong objections of Mattis and others on the national security team. Brett McGurk, the top U.S. envoy to the international coalition fighting the Islamic State militant group, also resigned in protest over Trump’s Syria decision.
In his Thursday resignation letter, Mattis delivered a sharp rebuke of Trump’s worldview and cast the president’s foreign policy positions as a threat to the nation.
Mattis said in the letter that he would resign his post on Feb. 28, to allow for a smooth transition to the next defense secretary. But Trump decided to hasten the process, announcing Sunday on Twitter that Shanahan would replace Mattis imminently.
“I am pleased to announce that our very talented Deputy Secretary of Defense, Patrick Shanahan, will assume the title of Acting Secretary of Defense starting January 1, 2019,” Trump wrote. “Patrick has a long list of accomplishments while serving as Deputy, & previously Boeing. He will be great!”
The announcement caught top officials at the Pentagon off guard.
The news was communicated to Mattis on Sunday morning, one official said. Trump himself has not spoken to Mattis since Thursday, when the secretary resigned, another official said.
“I think it’s fair to say that there is a lot of uncertainty about this week,” said a defense official who is close to Mattis and spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. “I think all of this is coming down in the last hour.”
Shanahan was traveling away from Washington when Trump tweeted his decision. A spokesman for Shanahan, Army Lt. Col. Joseph Buccino, said Sunday that Shanahan would continue to serve as directed by the president.
A spokeswoman for Mattis, Dana White, said that the outgoing secretary will focus over the next week on ensuring a smooth transition and that the Pentagon remains focused on the defense of the nation.
Mattis was due to give testimony on Capitol Hill regarding the new national security strategy, which probably would have resulted in tense questions about his resignation and differences with Trump. While Mattis still could end up testifying after leaving the Pentagon, his early dismissal by Trump reduces that chance.
The abrupt nature of Mattis’ departure raises questions about who else may leave the Pentagon in coming weeks, thrusting the department further into chaos.
Army Secretary Mark Esper, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson and Navy Secretary Richard Spencer all have characterized their relationships with Mattis as close, and Wilson has said that she chose to serve in the administration specifically at the request of Mattis.
“He told me, ‘You’re my first choice, and there’s big gap between you and my second choice. And I’m not going to talk to anyone else until you tell me whether you will do this if asked,’ ” Wilson said in an interview last year. “It’s one of those moments where you know your draft number has come up, and you’re supposed to serve.”
Trump initially praised Mattis for serving as defense secretary “with distinction” and achieving “tremendous progress.” But as he consumed media coverage in the hours and days that followed Mattis’ resignation, Trump vented to advisers about the narrative that took hold of the revered four-star Marine Corps general and military intellectual walking out on Trump because he believed the president’s erratic decisions were threatening the world order.
Although Mattis’ letter initially annoyed the president, the coverage of it was even more difficult to stomach, according to a senior administration official. Trump told aides that he especially resented the narrative of Mattis as a manager of Trump who served as a human guardrail against the president’s impulses, the official said.
In recent days, Trump told White house aides that he does not need Mattis and that his defense secretary was not as important a figure as others believed, the official said.
In replacing Mattis, at least temporarily, Trump has picked Shanahan, who made his name as an executive at Boeing, where he worked for decades, dealing at times with the aviation behemoth’s commercial aircraft and missile defense programs.
Trump had complained to aides that Mattis did not share his enthusiasm for negotiating defense contracts, and he likes that Shanahan took a special interest in such matters, according to a senior administration official.
Since his arrival at the Pentagon, Shanahan has emphasized making the department more efficient and business-friendly and has won plaudits at the White House by pushing through Trump’s vision for a space force, against the wishes of many of the building’s leaders and uniformed brass.