Adam Smith: Trump’s “childish” firing of Mark Esper will embolden America’s adversaries

The “ter­mi­na­tion” of U.S. Defense Sec­re­tary Mark Esper, announced in a Tweet by Pres­i­dent Trump, is a “child­ish” act that will embold­en America’s adver­saries dur­ing a time of pres­i­den­tial tran­si­tion, in words of U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Adam Smith, D‑Wash., chair­man of the Sen­ate Armed Ser­vices Committee.

Smith has warned about the politi­ciz­ing of the Pen­ta­gon, which he has described as one branch of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment that has stood apart from revolv­ing appoint­ments of offi­cials ter­ri­fied of anger­ing the President.

“Dis­miss­ing polit­i­cal­ly appoint­ed nation­al secu­ri­ty lead­ers dur­ing a tran­si­tion is a desta­bi­liz­ing move that will only embold­en our adver­saries and put our coun­try at greater risk,” Smith said in a state­ment after Trump’s abrupt post-elec­tion action.

“Pres­i­dent Trump’s deci­sion to fire Sec­re­tary Esper out of spite is not just child­ish, but it’s also reck­less. It has long been clear that Pres­i­dent Trump cares about loy­al­ty above all else, often at the expense of com­pe­tence, and dur­ing a peri­od of pres­i­den­tial tran­si­tion, com­pe­tence in gov­ern­ment is of the utmost importance.”

Esper had pre­pared a let­ter of res­ig­na­tion. But a vin­dic­tive Trump has made fir­ing by tweet a hall­mark of his gov­ern­ing style. The Defense Sec­re­tary incurred the incum­ben­t’s ire by announc­ing in June he would not deploy active-duty troops to Amer­i­can cities. Trump had float­ed use of the Insur­rec­tion Act to quell civ­il unrest.

Esper angered Trump again by mov­ing to ban dis­plays of Con­fed­er­ate flags at mil­i­tary instal­la­tions. Trump has defend­ed the nam­ing of major mil­i­tary instal­la­tions for such fig­ures as Con­fed­er­ate Gen­er­als Brax­ton Bragg and John Bell Hood. Both were major “losers” in the Civ­il War.

Esper is being replaced by Christo­pher Miller, direc­tor of the Nation­al Coun­tert­er­ror­ism Cen­ter, who will serve as act­ing defense sec­re­tary dur­ing the remain­ing sev­en­ty days of the Trump administration.

The jobs of two oth­er nation­al secu­ri­ty pro­fes­sion­als, CIA Direc­tor Gina Haspel and FBI Direc­tor Christo­pher Wray, are report­ed­ly also in jeopardy.

A sec­ond senior North­west law­mak­er, Sen­a­tor Ron Wyden, D‑Oregon, crit­i­cized the Esper fir­ing and Miller hir­ing. Said Wyden: “Don­ald Trump fired some­one who wouldn’t order U.S. troops to attack peace­ful pro­test­ers and is replac­ing him with some­one he may think will car­ry out those orders.

“I opposed Chris Miller’s nom­i­na­tion ear­li­er this year, because he refused to promise that intel­li­gence agen­cies wouldn’t tar­get Amer­i­cans based on their polit­i­cal views. He should remem­ber that any­one who car­ries out an ille­gal order from Don­ald Trump will be held ful­ly account­able under the law.”

Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi warned, in a state­ment, that the tim­ing of Esper’s ter­mi­na­tion “rais­es seri­ous ques­tions about Trump’s planned actions for the final days of his Administration.”

The ter­mi­na­tion of Esper “is dis­turb­ing evi­dence that Pres­i­dent Trump is intent on using his final days in office to sow chaos in our Amer­i­can Democ­ra­cy and around the world.”

Sen­a­tor Jack Reed, D‑Rhode Island, the rank­ing Demo­c­rat on the Sen­ate Armed Ser­vices Com­mit­tee, added: “Fir­ing of the Sec­re­tary of Defense in the wan­ing weeks of the Admin­is­tra­tion under­mines nation­al secu­ri­ty at a crit­i­cal moment.”

Adam Smith heads one of Con­gress’ most col­le­gial committees.

He has been more out­spo­ken of late, par­tic­u­lar­ly after the fir­ing of Capt. Brett Crozi­er of the car­ri­er U.S.S. Theodore Roo­sevelt, removed from his job for plead­ing for Pen­ta­gon help with a coro­n­avirus out­break on his ship.

Crozi­er was “thrown over­board” in a move that will have “a chill­ing effect” on truth-telling in the armed forces, Smith declared at the time. “Dis­miss­ing a com­mand­ing offi­cer for speak­ing out on issues crit­i­cal to the safe­ty of those under their com­mand dis­cour­ages oth­ers from rais­ing sim­i­lar con­cerns,” he warned.

When more than one hun­dred crew mem­bers con­tract­ed the pan­dem­ic, Crozi­er told the Pen­ta­gon, “Keep­ing over 4,000 young men and women on board the Theodore Roo­sevelt is an unnec­es­sary risk and breaks faith those sailors entrust­ed to our care. We are not at war. Sol­diers do not need to die.”

The fir­ing was proof that Trump chaos had arrived at the Pentagon.

Crozi­er was fired by act­ing Navy Sec­re­tary Thomas Mod­ly, who said the cap­tain “demon­strat­ed extreme­ly poor judg­ment.” Mod­ly was forced to resign after he flew to Guam, board­ed the car­ri­er and made deroga­to­ry remarks about Crozier.