Saturday, 30 January 2021 (YJC)_ The Pentagon has suspended the processing of a number of former President’s last-minute appointees.
The Pentagon has suspended the processing of a number of former President Donald Trump’s last-minute appointees to defense advisory boards as the new administration looks to weed out loyalists to the former president.
The move effectively prevents a number of Trump allies, including his 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and deputy campaign manager David Bossie, from actually serving on panels tasked with providing advice to the defense secretary, at least for the time being.
The news came in an email to advisory board members on Wednesday. The message was obtained by POLITICO and confirmed by two people familiar with the discussions.
The effort is aimed at scrubbing the members of the advisory boards “to determine if appointments were politically motivated vice professionally made,” said one of the people.
It was not immediately clear whether the Pentagon planned to take any action against those who have been onboarded, but the Biden team is looking into whether it can replace dozens of Trump’s last-minute appointments to boards and commissions across the U.S. government.
"The Secretary, as you would expect, is reviewing current policies in place across the Department to determine if any changes are necessary, to include the advisory boards," Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said in a statement. "No final decisions have been made with respect to board membership. But we will make the information available should that change."
Now the Biden team is reviewing the moves. The email that went out to advisory board members on Wednesday announced that effective immediately, "all appointments, reappointments and renewals" to the boards would be suspended “pending a thorough review by the new Administration.”
“Once a determination has been made, we will either continue to process the packages for final onboarding or return the packages to the sponsoring organization as cancelled,” according to the email.
Source: Politico
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