READY, FIRE, AIM: We’ve been scratching our heads trying to remember any other occasion where an incident crisis was as poorly handled as was the firing of the commanding officer of the USS Theodore Roosevelt. In less than a week, Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly went from saying at a press conference that Captain Brett Crozier would “face no retaliation” for sending a memo about the health of his crew, to firing him, to making midnight calls to reporters claiming that Crozier had panicked, to flying to Guam to tell the crew their ex-skipper must have been either “naïve” or “stupid” and should have known his words would leak to the media, to having his own words leak to the media, to issuing a statement saying he stood by every word of his diatribe, to hours later apologizing for some of those words and hours later resigning. For a detailed (mind blowing blow-by-blow timeline, check out Defense One.) Seriously, if you can think of a bigger bungled handling of a significant matter – send us a note.
JOBS REPORT: Who said good jobs are hard to come by these days? Judging by the turnover and turmoil in high government offices – there seems to be a lot of opportunity. We can’t begin to mention all the comings and goings – but here are a couple job developments that caught our eye. Axios reports that the President is considering billionaire Steve Feinberg for some undefined senior intelligence role within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It is unclear exactly what job that would be – but Axios says it would be one that doesn’t require senate confirmation. This comes on the heels of the president firing the Intelligence Community’s Inspector General Michael Atkinson and the appointment of Thomas Monheim as interim. Earlier this week, the White House announced the nomination of five other IG’s including Peter M. Thomson, an attorney from New Orleans, to fill the CIA’s IG post, which has not had a confirmed person in the position since 2015. That is not a typo. The Pentagon may also be close to filling one of their most important senior vacancies – that of Under Secretary for Policy. This position has been vacant since late February when John Rood was forced out reportedly for being insufficiently loyal to the president, Now Politico says two finalists for the job are frequent Fox News commentators – retired Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor and retired Army Brigadier General Anthony Tata.
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