Fight is on to stop Trump loyalist from burrowing into NSA

[Qutzupalotl]

The top Democrats on the Senate intelligence and armed services committees are trying to stop one of President Trump’s White House attorneys from taking over as the senior lawyer for the National Security Agency, the Daily Beast has learned.

Early last week, Michael Ellis was tapped as the surveillance giant’s top lawyer, reportedly an act of the White House in its final days. That rang alarm bells amongst Democrats and within certain intelligence circles. Not only was Ellis supposedly one of the Trump aides who helped Rep. Devin Nunes manufacture a surveillance “unmasking” scandal, he was implicated in moving to a classified server the record of Trump now-infamous phone call with Ukranian President Volodomyr Zelensky—the one that helped get Trump impeached.
....

The NSA general counsel is a position with civil service protections. In other words, a Biden administration cannot fire Ellis absent specific misconduct. That’s prompted concern, former officials say, that part of the final acts of the Trump administration is to embed loyalists within the bureaucracy, making real their accusations of a Deep State that overrides presidential authority.

“Trump is burning the whole house down. He’s burning it down and trying to take everything with him.”
— former senior national security official

https://www.thedailybeast.com/fight-is-on-to-stop-trump-loyalist-from-burrowing-into-nsa

[DBoon]

1. So now Putin has his agents inside our most secretive spy agency

[Mike 03]

2. What a mess. I don't think it's impossible that we end up with a situation where

the FBI actually opens counterintelligence and counterespionage cases on Trump's plants, yes, even in other intel agencies.

His supervisors need to hawk him. If he so much as farts when unauthorized, he needs to be shitcanned.

[OAITW r.2.0]

3. For a guy so innocent, Trump sure is looking like he has something to hide.

Maybe Biden can hire an NSA security specialist whose job it is to watch Ellis's every move.

[Qutzupalotl]

5. I like that idea!

[chia]

4. Can an executive order override civil service protections?

The fact I'm even asking that worries me, because any other time... but the age of Trump, how to combat the salted earth?

[Qutzupalotl]

6. I'm no lawyer, but I think that would not hold up.

However, reply #3 has what I think is a good and workable idea.

[nykym]

7. Didn't tRUMP issue an executive order

that allows the firing of civil servants?
https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/10/stunning-executive-order-would-politicize-civil-service/169479/

Could this be used to rid us of unwanted vermin?

[Qutzupalotl]

8. Oh, I didn't know that, thanks!

Sounds like we need to fire him first, THEN rescind the EO.

[nykym]

10. That was my

thought for all those who tRUMP appointed.
Get them out and than rescind the EO.
Use tRUMPS own fucked up rules to rid us of his minions in the admin.

[maxrandb]

9. The "position" has civil service protection, but

there is nothing to stop President Biden from moving him to a similar grade to some job in Antarctica, or Port "Who-Needs-Me, CA.

I happen to know there is an SES Equivalent position in Sub-saharan Africa.

Relax. Just about everything Donnie Dipshit does can be undone.