Navy Secretary Richard Spencer booted: Swamp revolt nipped in the bud

American Thinker ^ | 11/25/2019 | Monica Showalter

[SeekAndFind]

Appropriately, President and Commander in Chief Trump, through his Defense Secretary, told the slow on the uptake Navy secretary, Richard V. Spencer: "You're Fired!"

It was a swift and fitting response, given that it now emerges that Spencer was sneaking around behind his boss's back and arguably "blackmailing" the president over the case of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher.

Spencer was a real problem all around in this incident. First, he slow-walked Trump's order to leave Gallagher alone first by insisting that Trump would need to issue a formal order to get him to do anything (fill out a form in triplicate?) instead of tweet his very clear sentiment, and second that he'd fix things to make both the swamp and supposedly Trump happy by forcing Gallagher to retire, but allowing him to keep his prized Trident pin. Win-win, hey? He somehow didn't bother to tell Defense Secretary Mark Esper of his offer to the White House. And all that Commander in Chief Trump could see was that this boob didn't get the tweet hint about leaving Gallagher alone.

The New York Times, newspaper of choice of the Washington Swamp, initially reported that Spencer threatened to resign if he didn't get his way on how Gallagher was to be treated since his nearly total acquittal and his pardon and restoration of rank on the minor issue he was convicted of.

Spencer then denied it, but got weird in insisting that he'd only do what Trump wanted if he issued a formal order, and he made that public, he didn't go quietly through channels, as if to humiliate Trump. If he had any brain at all, he would have paid attention to the broad sentiment being conveyed by the commander in chief instead of kvetch like a NeverTrump about tweets.

[TexasGator]

I wouldnt say the SecNav was a nobody.

[Midwesterner53]

This is the message to the brass and troops: Whether Trump’s orders come by twitter, horseback, telegraph or carrier pigeon, they will be carried out. Any questions?

[Midwesterner53]

This was a key moment in Trump’s presidency. All military eyes were watching the President’s reaction to the Secretary’s insubordination and disobedience. Now that everyone knows the answer and what to expect, there will be no more of this foolishness. One more head (and stars) needs to roll to end the charade that Trump’s orders are only casual conversation. But to all but the most indoctrinated fools, the message is clear.

[packrat35]

The minute I heard his interview where he said he didn’t consider a tweet an order, I knew he was gone!

[GaryCrow]

“Such things should have been done 1000-fold back in 2017. Every Obama hire should have been canned”
````````````````

This^^

The vast majority of Trump’s problems can be directly attributed to the fact that he didn’t clean house when he came into office. Why there are still Obama loyalists in place almost three years into his administration is a mystery to me.

[vetvetdoug]

every Obama hire should have been canned

Spencer was a Trump hire from the get go. He had little to do with the Obama administration. I was schooled about this on another website.

[GaryCrow]

“Spencer was a Trump hire from the get go. He had little to do with the Obama administration. I was schooled about this on another website.”
`````````

Yes, I know that. I was responding to the quoted post about Obama holdovers.