May not like him much but suspected any respectable person staying behind may have done so out of patriotism... enemies, both foreign and domestic. At this point, the guy should just #wallkaway and let Trump tie the noose around his neck.
Joint Chiefs is out too. But that looks like a normal rotation. ______________________________________ Donald Trump makes it official: Gen. Mark Milley to chair Joint Chiefs of Staff David Jackson and Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY Published 9:35 a.m. ET Dec. 8, 2018 | Updated 2:57 p.m. ET Dec. 8, 2018 Army Gen. Mark Milley as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the military's highest-ranking officer. If confirmed by the Senate, Milley would replace Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford whose second, two-year term expires in 2019. "I am thankful to both of these incredible men for their service to our Country!" Trump said in making the announcement by tweet. "Date of transition to be determined." Milley has been a member of the Joint Chiefs since August 2015 when he took over as the Army's top officer. A career infantryman, Milley has deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and commanded conventional and Special Forces units. I am pleased to announce my nomination of four-star General Mark Milley, Chief of Staff of the United States Army – as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, replacing General Joe Dunford, who will be retiring.... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 8, 2018 Milley has advocated for increased spending to upgrade current Army weapons systems and to buy new ones to help counter the rise of adversaries such as China and Russia. Dunford, who was first nominated by then-president Barack Obama, received the nod for a second term from Trump in 2017. Trump signaled to reporters on Friday that he would announce the new chairman ahead of Saturday's Army-Navy football game, which the president is attending. "I have another one for tomorrow that I'm going to be announcing at the Army-Navy game. I can give you a little hint: It will have to do with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and succession."
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/26/politics/john-kelly-trump-yes-man/index.html "I said, whatever you do — and we were still in the process of trying to find someone to take my place — I said whatever you do, don't hire a 'yes man,' someone who won't tell you the truth — don't do that," Kelly said. "Because if you do, I believe you will be impeached." "Someone has got to be a guide that tells [the president] that you either have the authority or you don't, or Mr. President, don't do it," Kelly said, adding that "the system that should be in place, clearly — the system of advising, bringing in experts in, having these discussions with the president so he can make an informed decision, that clearly is not in place." Kelly also said that in light of the inquiry, "I feel bad that I left." "That was almost 11 months ago, and I have an awful lot of, to say the least, second thoughts about leaving," he added. "It pains me to see what's going on because I believe if I was still there or someone like me was there, he would not be kind of, all over the place." meanwhile; the WH press sec. taking a page out of N.Korea's playbook: White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham added, "I worked with John Kelly, and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great President." and Donnie getting butthurt per usual: Trump weighed in Saturday on Kelly's interview with the Washington Examiner, saying in a statement to CNN, "John Kelly never said that, he never said anything like that. If he would have said that I would have thrown him out of the office. He just wants to come back into the action like everybody else does."
https://www.axios.com/trump-john-kelly-fbi-41678290-167a-44c2-a20a-377955485bc8.html Trump offered FBI director job to John Kelly, asked for loyalty The day after President Trump fired FBI boss James Comey, the president phoned John Kelly, who was then secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, and offered him Comey's job, the New York Times' Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Michael Schmidt reports in his forthcoming book, "Donald Trump v. The United States." Driving the news: "But the president added something else — if he became FBI director, Trump told him, Kelly needed to be loyal to him, and only him." "Kelly immediately realized the problem with Trump's request for loyalty, and he pushed back on the president's demand," Schmidt writes. "Kelly said that he would be loyal to the Constitution and the rule of law, but he refused to pledge his loyalty to Trump." Why it matters: This previously unreported conversation sheds additional light on the president's mindset when he fired Comey. Special counsel Robert Mueller never learned of this information because the president's lawyers limited the scope of his team's two-hour interview with Kelly. "In addition to illustrating how Trump viewed the role and independence of senior officials who work for him, the president's demand for loyalty tracked with Comey's experience with Trump," Schmidt writes. Behind the scenes: Schmidt reports that "throughout Kelly's time working directly with Trump, Kelly was repeatedly struck by how Trump failed to understand how those who worked for him — like Kelly and other top former generals — had interest in being loyal not to him, but to the institutions of American democracy." "Kelly has told others that Trump wanted to behave like an authoritarian and repeatedly had to be restrained and told what he could and could not legally do." "Aside from questions of the law, Kelly has told others that one of the most difficult tasks he faced with Trump was trying to stop him from pulling out of NATO — a move that Trump has repeatedly threatened but never made good on, which would have been a seismic breach of American alliances and an extraordinary gift to Putin." Quote of the book: "Kelly has said that having to say no to Trump was like 'French kissing a chainsaw.'" Another revelation: Schmidt reports that Mueller's prosecutors made near real-time requests to McGahn's lawyer, Bill Burck, to find out what the president was telling the White House counsel in their private conversations. In a summary of the reporting, Schmidt tells me, "This was a highly invasive tactic. Mueller's team wanted to know whether Trump had a role in the firing of the acting FBI director Andrew McCabe and whether Trump was saying anything about prosecuting Comey." "Trump was indeed discussing prosecuting Clinton and Comey, and McGahn had written a memo to Trump detailing why he should not be pressing the Justice Department for such a prosecution." My thought bubble: This kind of activity from Mueller's team was far more invasive, in terms of information-gathering from the president's inner circle, than any investigating that happened on the 2016 campaign.
Its now the Republican party's official platform that the FBI and all other government agencies are directly loyal to Trump over the Constitution.