The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Trump fires nation’ s defense secretary
Mark Esper’s departure could fore shadow a broader post election purge of appointees who displeased the president.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper was fired Monday in a tweet as President Donald Trump went after a top aide he blamed for not supporting him sufficiently.
Trump said he’s naming Christopher Miller, director of the National Counter terrorism Center, as acting Pentagon chief.
Esper’s relationship with Trump soured after the Pentagon chief resisted Trump’s inclination to use active- duty forces to quell protests in U.S. cities earlier this year.
Esper’s departure could foreshadow a broader post- election purge of appointees who displeased the president. It also means Trump will have seen the departure of two confirmed defense secretaries in less than two years. The move drew criticism from Democrats.
“Continuity and stability are always important during a presidential transition; they are absolutely imperative at this moment, as this historically erratic administration prepares for its departure,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D- Calif., said in a statement. She said the timing “raises serious questions about Trump’s planned actions for the final days of his administration.”
Rep. Adam Smith, D- Wash., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Trump’s “decision to fire Secretary Esper out of spite is not just childish, it’s also reckless.”
While Esper, 56, had worked with the president on controversial priorities such ass ending U.S. troops to the border with Mexico and drawing down forces in Germany, Afghanistan and Syria, the president voiced increasing dissatisfaction with his Pentagon chief in recent months.
Trump said privately in August that he planned to replace Esper after the election, according to people familiar with the discussions, while the defense secretary told people close to him that he intended to leave regardless of the election’s outcome.
The White House had alerted Miller that he should be ready to become acting defense secretary. He had known since at least September, according to two people familiar with the situation.
Miller previously served as the top counter terrorism official at the White House’s National Security Council, where his portfolio was largely focused on what Trump sees as among his biggest foreign policy victories: hostage recovery and the campaign against Islamic State terrorists. He was overseeing the office when the U.S. launched a successful operation to kill Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi. Miller was later named deputy assistant secretary of defense for Special Operations and Combating Terrorism, and then offered the chance to run the National Counter terrorism Center. He was sworn in on Aug. 10 of this year after winning Senate confirmation on a voice vote. A veteran of the Army Special Forces, Miller helped draft the 2018 White House counterterrorism strategy — a document that classified Iran and Hezbollah as among the threats facing the United States.