Tuesday, March 13, 2018

WHY I DON'T THINK TILLERSON WAS FIRED FOR BLAMING THE BRITISH NERVE GAS POISONING ON THE RUSSIANS

Rex Tillerson is out:
President Trump has ousted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and plans to nominate CIA Director Mike Pompeo to replace him as the nation’s top diplomat....

Trump has selected ... Gina Haspel — the deputy director at the CIA — to succeed [Pompeo] at the CIA.
And I can understand why many people think this is a reasonable suspicion:



But I don't buy it:



Conceiving and executing a succession shuffle like this within 24 hours, in response to a Cabinet head crossing what the president regards as an uncrossable line, would be hard for even a normally competent administration. It's certainly beyond the capacity of these bumblers. That's why I think this must have been in the works for a while. I'm more inclined to think that Tillerson knew he was going to be canned, and the statement blaming Russia for the nerve gas poisoning in England was the work of a man who had no motivation to continue toeing the administration line. Or he was planning to quit and our overgrown eleven-year-old president decided to preempt that. ("You can't quit, you're fired!") I assume the real story will be leaked soon enough.

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