The rats are jumping or being pushed off the sinking ship

[Joe Guy]

Apparently, some brick shit houses have flexible rear doors.

[BoSoxGal]

Actually, they all do.

[RayThom]

Actually, they all do.

Yes, it merely depends on what gender isotype hangs above the door.

[Lord Jim]

Surprisingly, there aren't a whole lot of people interested in signing up as new crew members:

‘Career Suicide’: Four People Have Turned Down Job of White House Communications Director

Four people have turned down the offer to be considered for Mike Dubke’s job as White House communications director, according to a New York Times report.

Following Dubke’s resignation from the post, which came in the midst of a White House mired in turmoil, the administration has begun searching for his replacement.

The Times reports that as a frustrated President Donald Trump “considers casting off old aides”, he is “finding it challenging to recruit new ones.”

Trump’s undisciplined administration, paired with his tendency for off-the-cuff comments that undermine his own spokespeople, and a lack of job security for even his most senior aides, has warned off potential replacements for Dubke: “four possible successors contacted by the White House declined to be considered, according to an associate of Mr. Trump who like others asked not to be identified discussing internal matters.”

The job of communications director in the White House would typically attract top spox talent, but a dearth of candidates underscores the perils of placing one’s credibility in the hands of the Trump administration.

A Buzzfeed report out Tuesday contacted “20 Republican communicators and operatives,” nearly all of whom said they would not accept an offer to replace Dubke.

One called the job “career suicide,” another likened it to a “horrific bungee jumping accident,” and a third said the job would be akin to “taking over communications for the White Star Line after the Titanic has sunk.”

A veteran from President George W. Bush’s White House had words of warning for the next comms director: “You’re going to come out of the administration with your reputation in tatters, your credibility utterly destroyed, and your job prospects close to nil unless you want a low level CNN contributorship.”

http://www.mediaite.com/trump/career-su ... -director/

[Scooter]

Trump faces shrinking talent pool for new hires

President Trump faces serious challenges in restructuring a White House, from getting experienced Washington hands to work for him to whether his own premium for loyalty will block otherwise qualified candidates from working for him.

Republicans say the problems mean that Trump, an outsider who basically took over his party and is still viewed with suspicion in establishment circles, will face even more trouble in trying to refashion his team.

“The talent pool is shrinking, because who wants to sign up for crazy?” said Michael Steele, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC).

“Nobody wants to step into a situation where you’re flying by the seat of your pants and don’t know whether what you just said will hold up from one news cycle to the next,” he added. “Nobody is going to be lining up for positions with that much uncertainty.”

The abrupt resignation of White House communications director Michael Dubke, who handed in his papers before Trump’s foreign trip, highlights the president’s dilemma.

Dubke’s departure, which was only announced on Tuesday, comes amid hand-wringing by Republicans over the trajectory of the GOP president, who has seen his approval numbers sag.

Investigations by congressional panels and a new special prosecutor looking into Russia’s role in last year’s presidential election have slowed Trump’s agenda and repeatedly thrown the administration off balance.

So has the general turbulence on Team Trump, which has struggled to put together a consistent message — in part because of the president’s own tendency to go off script.

Rumors that big changes could be coming for Trump’s team have circulated for weeks. Most of the reports have focused on the communications team once led by Dubke, though everyone from senior strategist Stephen Bannon to chief of staff Reince Priebus and Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser Jared Kushner has been mentioned.

Critics of Priebus have floated GOP operative David Urban and Andy Card, former President George W. Bush’s chief of staff, as possible replacements. (as fucking if!!)

Outside advisers to Trump say Priebus bears responsibility for not bringing in a deeper talent pool to the White House, something they said he should have been able to do given his experience as RNC chairman.

“I have never seen it before where people came in to work in the West Wing and had never met the president — it’s unheard of,” said one former Trump adviser. “There are plenty of people who would give both arms to have one of these jobs. What they need is a chief of staff or someone else with a Rolodex of 5,000 names and a broad network to come clean this up.” (yeah, I'm sure there are thousands of qualified people chomping at the bit to destroy their careers and throw away any vestige of self-respect by signing up to work at this carnival funhouse)

Card, who worked as Bush’s chief of staff for six years, would certainly fit that bill.

Yet there are real questions about whether someone like Card, a loyalist to Bush, would take a job in Trump’s White House. There are questions about whether Trump would want him. And if he won the job, there would be questions about whether Trump would listen to him.

Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s combative former campaign manager, and ex-deputy campaign chief David Bossie are rumored to be under consideration to operate a so-called war room to deal with the deepening Russia controversy.

This would bring back figures solidly aligned with Trump, but it is unclear whether they would be able to get the administration on track.

Some observers doubt it, arguing Trump himself must set the ship straight with his own behavior. It was Trump who launched bad news cycles for the White House with his unfounded accusation that former President Barack Obama had Trump Tower wiretapped and his claim that he has secret recordings of his conversations with ousted FBI Director James Comey.

“I don’t foresee any staff changes having an impact on the trajectory of this administration,” said Ryan Williams, a former adviser to 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. “You cannot retool the communications operation unless the principal retools.” (bingo!)

Trump has repeatedly undercut his own team, sending advisers out to defend impossible positions or contradicting his spokespeople on key issues, often resulting in days of crisis management.

Some of Trump’s allies blame his senior aides for keeping his universe small, saying they’re fearful of relinquishing influence over the president by bringing in heavyweight operatives.

Dubke, a respected communications expert who worked on several Republican Senate campaigns before joining the White House, quit after reading rumors of his firing in the press.

In doing so, he became a cautionary tale for longtime Washington hands.

“It seems difficult for outsiders to come in and gel with the existing structure that has been put into place,” Williams said. “President Trump doesn’t seem to trust people who haven’t been loyal to him for a long time.”

The political climate surrounding the president has even hurt the search at Cabinet agencies, such as the State Department and Labor Department, slowing the process of rolling back Obama’s policies and implementing Trump’s own. (well there's a silver lining to this tomfoolery, after all)

The steady stream of criticism aimed at the communications shop has put press secretary Sean Spicer in a tough spot. (particularly since it's a pretty good bet that he's one of the next to go)

On Tuesday, he got into a heated debate with reporters at the briefing over questions about a looming shake-up and whether Trump has confidence in his team.

Spicer fired back, accusing the media of peddling “fake news” before abruptly leaving the podium.

“I think he’s very pleased with the work of his staff,” Spicer said. “I think he’s frustrated, like I am and so many others, to see stories come out that are patently false, to see narratives that are wrong and see quote-unquote fake news. When you see stories get perpetrated that are absolutely false, that are not based in fact, that is troubling. And he’s rightly concerned.”

The notion of Andy Card agreeing to join this clown circus was my spit coffee at my monitor moment for the day.

[Lord Jim]

The notion of Andy Card agreeing to join this clown circus was my spit coffee at my monitor moment for the day.

Yeah, uhh, that's not gonna happen...

You cannot retool the communications operation unless the principal retools.” (bingo!)

Exactly...

Trump could have a Chief-Of-Staff who was Jim Baker, David Gergen and Leon Panetta all rolled into one, and it wouldn't it make a damn bit of difference so long as Trump remains Trump...

The only types he's going to be able to get to work for him at this point are unqualified shameless suck-ups who have no reputations to lose...

Like Corey Lewandowski...

[Burning Petard]

IMNSHO, this shrinking talent pool phenom is the primary reason there are so few Exec dept presidential appointments in the approval process pipe-line and why the ICE street agents can run amuck--too many gaps in the supervisory chain of command.


The Trumps admin's FIRST big mistake was accepting resignations of all the incumbent appointees and letting so very few stay on till replacement. I like the Brit system of permanent undersecretary.

snailgate

[kristina]

I can't imagine anyone with an IQ greater than that of my dead cat thinking that a job in 45's administration would be a good career move.

[rubato]

I can't imagine anyone with an IQ greater than that of my dead cat thinking that a job in 45's administration would be a good career move.

Only if they plan to make a killing writing a tell-all book afterwards.

[MajGenl.Meade]

I can't imagine anyone with an IQ greater than that of my dead cat thinking that a job in 45's administration would be a good career move.

Fortunately, none of those are applying....

[Scooter]

Exclusive: Jeff Sessions suggested he could resign amid rising tension with President Trump

As the White House braces for former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony Thursday, sources tell ABC News the relationship between President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions has become so tense that Sessions at one point recently even suggested he could resign.

The friction between the two men stems from the attorney general's abrupt decision in March to recuse himself from anything related to the Russia investigation -- a decision the president only learned about minutes before Sessions announced it publicly. Multiple sources say the recusal is one of the top disappointments of his presidency so far and one the president has remained fixated on.

Trump’s anger over the recusal has not diminished with time. Two sources close to the president say he has lashed out repeatedly at the attorney general in private meetings, blaming the recusal for the expansion of the Russia investigation, now overseen by Special Counsel and former FBI Director Robert Mueller.

But sources say the frustration runs both ways, prompting the resignation offer from Sessions.

Asked by ABC News if the attorney general had threatened or offered to resign, Justice Department spokesperson Sarah Isgur Flores declined to comment.

Meanwhile, White House press secretary Sean Spicer was asked today if the president still has confidence in his attorney general. He could not say.

“I have not had that discussion with him,” Spicer said.

“So you can’t say if he has confidence in his attorney general?” Spicer was asked.

Spicer responded: “I said I have not had a discussion with him on the question. I don’t, If I haven't had a discussion about a subject, I tend not to speak about it.”

[Guinevere]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/four-top-law ... 23972.html

Still hasn't replaced any of the United States attorneys that he fired, either. No ethical lawyer in their right mind ( or with any basic sense of self-preservation) would want to represent this asshole or his government.

[Lord Jim]

The friction between the two men stems from the attorney general's abrupt decision in March to recuse himself from anything related to the Russia investigation -- a decision the president only learned about minutes before Sessions announced it publicly. Multiple sources say the recusal is one of the top disappointments of his presidency so far and one the president has remained fixated on.

Gee, I wonder why Trump would be so obsessed about this...

Do you think it could possibly be because he was counting on Sessions to be his willing tool to shut down the Russiagate investigation, and because of the recusal, Trump himself had to take the lead role in obstructing justice in order to try to accomplish this?

Or because of the recusal, the decision to appoint a Special Counsel was taken out of the hands of a political loyalist and instead put in the hands of a career DOJ official who has now appointed a man to that position that Trump cannot control or influence in the slightest way ?

Those are rhetorical questions...

[Lord Jim]

It's Comey time, and Trump's war room has no soldiers

With CNN's clock already counting down to fired FBI Director Jim Comey's testimony on Thursday morning, where's the White House war room? Remember the scandal-containment unit that was supposed to quarantine the rest of the White House from Russia questions, so that President Trump could pursue a positive agenda, with the Clinton-style scandal machinery handling the investigations?

I'm told that the inside-outside machinery, as envisioned by aides who frantically planned it while Trump finished his overseas trip, may never exist. Top Republicans say the White House has been unable to lure some of the legal and rapid-response talent they had been counting on.[Gee, now there's a shockaroo...]

White House Counsel Don McGahn had drawn up an org chart that Trump's team liked. But Game Day is 48 hours away, and the boxes aren't filled.

A person involved in the conversations said: "They had a pretty good structure, but they're not able to close the deal."

Reasons include some power lawyers' reluctance to work with/for lead Trump lawyer Marc Kasowitz; resistance by Kasowitz to more cooks in his kitchen; and lack of confidence that Trump would stick to advice. Some prospects worry about possible personal legal bills, [with the appointment of a Special Counsel, that's something that every current and possible future White House staffer has to be worried about.] and are skeptical Trump can right the ship.

So far, the existing Trump and GOP infrastructure is still stuck with pushback duties.

After Trump's tweets yesterday undermining his own Supreme Court case on the travel ban, his Republican allies on Capitol Hill and downtown sounded weary and irritated at day after day of self-inflicted wounds:

A top GOP operative said: "People are running out of patience. [they can't run out of it fast enough to suit me] He's in a very tenuous position, where it wouldn't take a lot more bad news for things to come crumbling apart. Their complete inability to get ahead of the Russia story is so strange to people."

The N.Y. Times' Michael Schmidt, who broke the story that Comey had kept memos of his conversations with Trump, made the remarkable disclosure on "Morning Joe" last week that it was Trump's twitter threat to Comey ("James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!") "that motivated some of the folks that I was talking to ... and led to them talking about how Trump told Comey to end the Flynn investigation. ... [T]he tweets ... loosen them up to talk about things."[You keep on tweetin' Donald; your tweets are performing a great service for the American people ]

Why it matters: On a call with reporters last evening, White House Legislative Affairs director Marc Short said he expects Republicans to pass healthcare and the 2018 budget this summer so the fall can be focused on tax reform. That should be achievable, but many White House allies are skeptical because so much bandwidth, at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, is being diverted to scandals and distractions.

And don't forget it's Infrastructure Week!

https://www.axios.com/its-comey-time-an ... 11779.html

ETA:

To the long, long list of reasons for why no person of quality with a reputation to lose or (even self-respect) would consider signing up at this point to be a deck hand on the USS Clusterfuck, ( Trump's constant under-cutting, his refusal to follow advice, his propensity to publicly humiliate, his demand for ostentatious bootlicking praise, and his willingness to completely destroy credibility earned over years just to win a news cycle) we can now add the prospect of many thousands of dollars in legal bills:

White House aides bracing for subpoenas and grand jury summons have already begun making inquiries for legal help to navigate the unfamiliar terrain, according to lawyers who have been contacted, opening critical lines of communication in a bid to avoid serious harm to their reputations and careers, and perhaps even jail time.

“It can cost a lot of money,” said Peter Wehner, a former George W. Bush White House aide who was called in for a grand jury appearance in the investigation into the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity. “Just for safety sake, even if you’ve done nothing wrong.”

Long-standing conflict of interest restrictions limit White House employees in many circumstances from accepting free or discounted attorney advice, and history is littered with examples of a president’s team buried under more than a hundred thousand dollars (George Stephanopoulos, under President Bill Clinton), if not millions (I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, under President George W. Bush), in legal fees.

Trump aides who can’t afford a premier $1,500-per-hour white-collar lawyer on their government salaries have options. They can file for public subsidies, lean on their homeowners’ insurance or tap lawyer friends for pro bono help. [Gee, that must sound attractive.] But even then, veterans of White House scandals stretching back to the Ronald Reagan era say that some of the staffers who get caught in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s crosshairs will want to start pinching pennies.

“Obviously for the people who have a lot of money and assets, some of these higher ups, it’s not a problem. It’s a problem for the lower downs who don’t,” said Stanley Brand, a white-collar attorney who represented Stephanopoulos, Clinton’s first White House press secretary, during the probe of the president’s Whitewater land deals.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/2 ... ees-238631

[Sue U]

From Guin's link, on why top DC law firms have been turning down Trump as a client:

‘The guy won’t pay and he won’t listen,’

Might get way with maybe one or the other, but never both.

[RayThom]

So long, Jeff, don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

Getting rid of bad rubbish by any means possible. You go, Donald!

To paraphrase John Donne: “No man is an Island, entire of it self; every man is a piece of the (Government,) a part of the main.”