Nikki Haley Resigns

[Big RR]

I just heard on the radio that Nikki Haley has resigned as UN Ambassador. I'm sure there will be more to come.

[Lord Jim]

There have been very few people who have some how managed to hold high ranking posts in the Trump administration without doing major damage to their reputations...

Nikki Haley is one of them...(another one that comes immediately to mind is Jim Matis...)

The loss of one of the few folks who have accomplished this rare achievement is certainly not good news for the country...

[RayThom]

So now Pence is denying reports that he is positioning himself to run for president in 2020, and even talking with Nikki Haley as his running mate. (A slight to Haley, IMHO.) Regardless, if Pence steps in to fill a Drumpf void we should expect the worst to happen -- nothing good will come of it.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=18799&p=254077&hili ... ey#p254077

I still feel the "anonymous Trump administration senior official" who wrote the NYT Op-Ed was Pence. With the White House three-ring circus constantly in the spotlight nothing surprises me any more.

Haley / Pence... 2020

[Sue U]

Trump will sack Sessions after the midterms, appoint Lindsey Graham as AG and then Haley will be appointed to Graham's Senate seat.

That's one possibility.

ETA:

The real puzzler is who Trump will select for UN Ambassador. Javanka? Kanye? Vitaly Churkin?

[Big RR]

And I was just thinking Bolton. But maybe it is Kanye, after how badly those evil liberals treated him.

[eddieq]

The real puzzler is who Trump will select for UN Ambassador. Javanka? Kanye? Vitaly Churkin?

Putin

[Sue U]

And I was just thinking Bolton.

Pffft. Wacko, sure, but really, is it wacko enough? I think not. Needs to be someone so wildly inappropriate as to hijack the news cycle for a week or two, right at the time the Mueller report is released.

[Lord Jim]

The real puzzler is who Trump will select for UN Ambassador. Javanka? Kanye? Vitaly Churkin?

I think Taylor Swift has taken herself out of the running...

[Scooter]

Another theory for her resignation?

Nikki Haley's resignation comes one day after an ethics watchdog requested an investigation into her acceptance of free flights on private jets

United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley's abrupt resignation on Tuesday came one day after an ethics watchdog group requested the State Department's inspector general investigate her acceptance of seven free flights aboard private jets from a trio of South Carolina businessmen.

Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, listed the flights on her 2017 financial disclosure and asserted that each qualified for an exception based on her relationships with the businessmen.

But the group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said in its complaint that Haley's financial disclosure did not provide enough information to make the assertion that the flights between New York, Washington, DC, and three South Carolina cities qualified for the exemption.

Those flights were most likely worth tens of thousands of dollars, CREW suggested.

"Whether the exception applies depends partly on whether the three businessmen were the only sources of the gifts; if business entities were sources of the gifts, the exception was inapplicable," CREW said. "Federal ethics regulations prohibit employees from soliciting or accepting gifts given because of the employee's official position."

The three businessmen who provided the flights to Haley and her husband were Jimmy Gibbs, Smyth McKissick, and Mikee Johnson. Gibbs is the CEO of Gibbs International, and McKissick and Johnson are CEOs of private companies in South Carolina.

Johnson is chair of The Original Six Foundation, which Haley founded in 2011. McKissick is chairman of Clemson University's board of trustees. Haley is a graduate of the university and her daughter is currently enrolled there as a student.

"By accepting gifts of luxury private flights, Ambassador Haley seems to be falling in line with other Trump administration officials who are reaping personal benefits from their public positions," CREW's executive director, Noah Bookbinder, said in a Monday statement.

Tom Price resigned as the secretary of health and human services last year amid a controversy involving his air travel. Other top Trump administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, have come under fire for their air-travel practices.

[ex-khobar Andy]

It looks as if Ivanka will not be the new UN Ambassador.

It is an honor to serve in the White House alongside so many great colleagues and I know that the President will nominate a formidable replacement for Ambassador Haley. That replacement will not be me,' the first daughter tweeted.

I'm so glad she cleared that up.

(According to The Daily Mail - so as usual, consider the source.)