A TRUMP LOYALIST NOW HEADS NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE

…Joseph Maguire, as the DNI, was let go for doing his job

We are in trouble when the president’s ego is more important than national security.

President Trump has named Richard Grenell, the current  US ambassador to Germany, as the next acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI).  This man has no experience in intelligence, but he is loyal to Donald Trump.

The man that the president dismissed as the DNI, Joseph Maguire, was a well respected patriot with a reputation for knowing his business.  Maguire served for 36 years as a Navy SEAL.  In 2004, he was promoted to the rank of rear admiral and was chosen to command all of Naval Special Warfare, including all those SEALs.

Those were dark days for the SEALs. Our combat losses from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were the highest in our history, and Joe and his wife, Kathy, attended every SEAL funeral, providing comfort and solace to the families of the fallen.

However, Maguire didn’t stop there. Not a day went by that the Maguires didn’t reach out to some Gold Star family, some wounded SEAL, some struggling warrior.  Every loss was personal to Maguire, every family was precious. 

When Joe had retired from the Navy in 2010, he tried to work the corporate world. But his passion for the Special Operations soldiers was so deep that he left a very lucrative job and took on the position as the president of the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, a charity that pays for educating the children of fallen warriors

Most of those that know him say that there was no better of an officer, no better a man and no greater US patriot.

Unfortunately, Mr. Maguire will now be amongst those such as Jim Mattis, John Kelly, H.R. McMaster, Sue Gordon, and Dan Coats.  These were all those that had tried their best, to do their best, to support a very ignorant president.  A US President that only wants those that are loyal to him personally.  They do not need to be one of those loyal to our US Constitution, nor to their positions within the US government.

In 2018, Joe was asked by the president to be the director of the National Counterterrorism Center.  This was a terrific job for Joe as he knew it well from his last assignment as a vice admiral.  He, of course, accepted the job. 

Unfortunately, within months of his arrival came the announcement of Dan Coats’s departure as Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Maguire didn’t seek to fill that job, but he was asked to do it by President Trump.

At first he declined the job and he suggested that Sue Gordon, Coats’s deputy, would be better suited for the job.

But the president insisted on Maguire, so like most good American men and women, he came in with the intent to do his very best.  Maguire would follow the rules, follow the law and would follow what was morally right.

But within a few weeks of taking the assignment, Maguire found himself embroiled in the Ukraine whistleblower case.

Joe had told the White House that, if asked, he would testify, and he would tell the truth.  He did testify and in short order, he earned the respect of the entire intelligence community. They knew a good man was at the helm. A man they could count on, and a man who would back them.  Maguire was a man whose integrity was more important than his future employment.

But, of course, as we have seen in this administration, good men and women don’t last long.  

Joe was dismissed for doing his job of overseeing the dispersion of intelligence to elected officials who needed that information to do their jobs.

In fact, the reason that Maguire was removed from his position was that he told the truth in a meeting with the congressional members of the intelligence committees.  He told them that the Russians were again attempting to influence the 2020 US elections.  He did this prior to having a meeting with the president.

It is not uncommon for this type of meeting to occur with the congressional committees.  But Trump obviously wanted to hear it first, just so he could tell the Director exactly how he was to inform the committees.  Especially those committees with those Democrats that were the former impeachment managers.  He did not want Maguire to say anything that implied that the Russians were in support of the current US president.

Trump is trying to only have his loyalists in any function of the government, and by telling the truth to the intelligence committees, the president decided that Maguire was being un-loyal.

In other words, Trump wants to be a dictator or to be “king-like”.

So, once again, in this administration, good men and women aren’t lasting long.  Joe was dismissed for doing his job of informing elected officials who needed that information.

When good men and women can’t speak the truth.  When the facts are inconvenient to the president, and when integrity and character no longer matter.  When the presidential ego and self-preservation are more important than national security, then there is nothing left to stop the triumph of the president’s evil.

Copyright G. Ater 2020