TRUMP GOES FOR MORE CHANGES
US president names ex-bush official William Barr as new attorney general
WASHINGTON: In another staff shake-up of his often turbulent administration, President Donald Trump said on Friday he had picked the two people he wants to be the next US attorney general and next US ambassador to the United Nations.
Trump said he will nominate former Attorney General William Barr to fill the top job at the US Justice Department again, and that he will put forward State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert as ambassador to the United Nations. Both are posts that have to be confirmed by the Senate.
Trump also said he would make another personnel announcement on Saturday.
“It will have to do with the joint chiefs of staff, the succession,” he told reporters outside the White House, suggesting he may name a new top US military officer.
Separately, CNN reported on Friday that John Kelly is expected to resign as White House chief of staff in coming days, citing unnamed sources. Reuters has not independently confirmed the report.
The rocky relationship between Trump and Kelly, 68, a retired Marine Corps general, has been widely reported.
WASHINGTON: Former US secretary of state Rex Tillerson says that President Donald Trump repeatedly wanted to violate the law, describing him as “undisciplined” and uninterested in details.
Tillerson, who was ired in March, made no attempt to deny his poor relationship with Trump during a rare interview Thursday night as part of a charity dinner in his native Texas.
“I think part of it was obviously we are starkly different in our styles. We did not have a common value system,” Tillerson told veteran journalist Bob Schieffer of CBS News, which broadcast an excerpt on Friday.
“I’d have to say to him, ‘Well, Mr President, I understand what you want to do, but you can’t do it that way — it violates the law, it violates a treaty.’
“He got really frustrated,” he said. “I think he grew tired of me being the guy every day that told him you can’t do that and let’s talk about what we can do.”
NEW AG
Earlier during the day, Trump tapped William Barr, a conservative lawyer who was attorney general in the administration of the late George H.W. Bush, to lead the US Department of Justice.
Barr would succeed Jeff Sessions, who Trump forced to resign last month amid rising pressure on the White House from the Russia collusion investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
“Bill Barr will be nominated for the United states Attorney General position. I think he will serve with great distinction,” Trump told reporters.
“He was my irst choice from day one. Respected by Republicans and respected by Democrats,” he added, describing Barr as “a terriic man, a terriic person, a brilliant man.”
Barr has a record of supporting strong executive powers, which could play into high-stakes legal battles on everything from immigration policy to war powers to whether the president can be required to give testimony in the Russia investigation.
Tillerson, a former chief executive of oil giant Exxonmobil, had no government experience and had never met Trump when his nomination was promoted by Republican Party insiders, who hoped for a stable igure who could nonetheless appeal to the tycoon-turned-president with his outsider status and business background.
Tillerson immediately struggled to it in, focusing on internal State Department streamlining rather than broader foreign policy goals as his relationship frayed with Trump.