Epstein Secrets

USE_OVERSIGHT_020114 president’s part. The daily discussion among senior staffers, those still there and those now gone—all of whom had written off Tillerson’s future in the Trump administration—was how long General Kelly would last as chief of staff. There was something of a virtual office pool, and the j

believed that the sole upside of being part of the Trump White House was to help prevent worse from happening. In early October, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s fate was sealed—if his obvious ambivalence toward the president had not already sealed it—by the revelation that he had called the president “a fucki

ge Bannon’s ouster by McMaster’s hand from the NSC. With the president promising that he would make up his mind by August, and McMaster, Mattis, and Tillerson pressing for a decision as soon as possible, Bannon- inspired media began a campaign to brand McMaster as a globalist, interventionist, and all aroun

9-70, 297 Chopra, Deepak, 80 Christie, Chris, 16, 24-25, 30-31, 210, 242, 279 Christoff, Niki, 78 Churchill, Winston, 50 Circa news website, 159, 257 Clapper, James, 41, 214-15 Clinton, Bill, 23, 27, 54, 58, 90, 116, 123, 128, 158, 225, 228 impeachment of, 201, 233, 280 Clinton, Hillary, 3, 11-12, 18, 35,

ought up the possibility of firing everybody. Should I fire Bannon? Should I fire Reince? Should I fire McMaster? Should I fire Spicer? Should I fire Tillerson? This ritual was, everyone understood, more a pretext to a discussion of the power he held than it was, strictly, about personnel decisions. Still, i

dy with foreign policy stature and an international network had been put in HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020053 place—even the new secretary of state designate, Rex Tillerson, had no real experience in foreign policy. To bewildered foreign secretaries, it seemed logical to see the presidentelect’s son-in-law as a figure of

ting ended, Priebus and Bannon thought they had bought some breathing room. Later that day, Sally Yates and former director of National Intelligence James Clapper appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Crime and Terrorism subcommittee— and were greeted by a series of furious tweets from the president.

us impressions of the man, agreed to sign on. Jim Mattis, a retired four-star general, one of the most respected commanders in the U.S. armed forces; Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil; Scott Pruitt and Betsy De Vos, Jeb Bush loyalists—all of them were now focused on the singular fact that while he might be a pecu

every cabinet member for the next seven days through their confirmation hearings,” he said of the business-and-military 1950s-type cabinet choices. “Tillerson is two days, Session is two days, Mattis is two days... .” Bannon veered from “Mad Dog” Mattis—the retired four-star general whom Trump had nominate

of the Breitbart lexicon, became the Trump team term of art: he’s poked the deep state bear. Names were put to this: John Brennan, the CIA director; James Clapper, the director of national intelligence; Susan Rice, the outgoing National Security Advisor; and Ben Rhodes, Rice’s deputy and an Obama favorite. Mov