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US President Donald Trump replaced several key defense officials with people believed to be loyal to him, raising concern among Pentagon officials. Military sources told CNN that “these are dictatorial movements,” Mediafax said.
Since Donald Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Monday, three other Defense Department officials have resigned or been fired. James Anderson, acting undersecretary of defense for politics, resigned from the White House on Tuesday, Politico reports.
Anderson was replaced by a retired brigadier general. Gender. Anthony Tata, a Trump ally and a regular guest on Fox News, made several false and Islamophobic statements about former President Barack Obama in tweets discovered by CNN, calling him a Muslim and a “terrorist leader” who “normalized Islam for America.”
Joseph Kernan, Under Secretary of Defense for Information, and Jen Stewart, Esper’s chief of staff, left their posts and were replaced by Ezra Cohen-Watnick and Kash Patel.
Both Cohen-Watnick and Patel are considered extremely loyal to the incumbent president, The Associated Press reported.
There seems to be growing concern at the Pentagon that the wave of personnel changes may be just beginning and that Trump’s decisions may become more volatile.
“It’s scary. It’s very disturbing,” a defense official told CNN, adding: “These are dictatorial movements.”
Officials told The Washington Post that Under Secretary of Defense David Norquist could be the next to be fired.
Representative Adam Smith, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday that the layoffs should “alarm” the American public.
Smith added that if this is the beginning of a series of firings of defense professionals and their replacement by loyal but inexperienced individuals, “then the next 70 days will have to be treated with caution at best and may turn out to be dangerous in the worst case. ”
