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Eliott Abrams, who was deputy national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration, has been removed from the list of candidates for Deputy Secretary of State.<\/h2>\n
by<\/span> JOHN HAYWARD According to \u201cthree Republican sources\u201d who spoke to CNN<\/a>, Abrams was personally scratched off the list by President Donald Trump, due to \u201coutspoken\u201d criticism of Trump during the 2016 campaign. Abrams had been seen as the top contender for the job, supported by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, and even senior adviser Jared Kushner, who is President Trump\u2019s son-in-law.<\/p>\n The CNN sources were bitingly critical of Trump for deciding not to nominate Abrams. \u201cThis is a loss for the State Department and the country and, for that matter, for the President,\u201d said one, while another maintained Abrams was bumped off the list because of \u201cDonald Trump\u2019s thin skin and nothing else.\u201d<\/p>\n However, even the CNN article concedes there is more than \u201cthin skin\u201d behind the decision. For one thing, Abrams was not merely critical of Trump in a few random comments last year. He penned a May 2016 op-ed for the\u00a0Weekly Standard<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>entitled, \u201cWhen You Can\u2019t Stand Your Candidate,\u201d which declared Trump unfit for office, incorrectly predicted he couldn\u2019t possibly win, and compared him to George McGovern. (For those who lack 69-year-old Abrams\u2019 perspective on political history, that is\u00a0not\u00a0<\/em>a flattering comparison.)<\/p>\n Abrams called for a floor fight at the Republican convention in 2016, to remind Trump \u201chow many in the party oppose and even fear his nomination,\u201d warned any Republican with future political aspirations to avoid becoming Trump\u2019s running mate, called for a purge of Trumpians from the GOP after Hillary Clinton\u2019s inevitable 2016 victory, and suggested running a third-party spoiler candidate to ensure a crushing defeat for Trump.<\/p>\n Moreover, there is a substantial difference in foreign policy vision between Trump and Abrams, whom CNN has no difficulty identifying as a \u201cneoconservative\u201d and supporter of the Iraq War.<\/p>\n Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) of the Foreign Relations Committee strongly opposed Abrams\u2019 nomination, as reported by Breitbart News<\/a> earlier this week, because\u00a0Abrams\u2019s worldview was utterly\u00a0incompatible with Trump\u2019s foreign policy agenda.<\/p>\n In Senator Paul\u2019s case, \u201cstrongly opposed\u201d means he wrote an op-ed for Rare<\/a> entitled, \u201cDo Not Let Eliott Abrams Anywhere Near the State Department,\u201d which is roughly as unambiguous as Abrams writing a piece about Trump called \u201cWhen You Can\u2019t Stand Your Candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCrack the door to admit Elliott Abrams and the neocons will scurry in by the hundreds,\u201d warned Paul. \u201cNeoconservative interventionists have had us at perpetual war for 25 years. While President Trump has repeatedly stated his belief that the Iraq War was a mistake, the neocons (all of them Never-Trumpers) continue to maintain that the Iraq and Libyan Wars were brilliant ideas. These are the same people who think we must blow up half the Middle East, then rebuild it and police it for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n Paul was particularly critical of Abrams\u2019 devotion to \u201cnation-building,\u201d slamming the practice as both expensive and ineffective. He was concerned that Abrams would be a poor fit not only for Trump but for Secretary of State Tillerson as well, praising Tillerson for \u201cforeign policy realism\u201d he found utterly lacking in Abrams.<\/p>\n Paul\u00a0viewed Abrams as an exemplar of the sneering, latte-sipping political class in Washington that Trump was elected to fight, and which shows every intention of fighting dirty in return, as the geysers of leaked information<\/a> pouring from the new administration attest. (In fact, this very story is the subject of leaks intended to manipulate media coverage, as noted above.)<\/p>\n Paul said\u00a0Abrams was untrustworthy\u00a0due to his role in the Iran-Contra scandal: \u201cHis conviction for deceiving Congress over secret arms deals, better known as the Iran-Contra scandal, show that his neocon agenda trumps his fidelity to the rule of law. The Constitution directs Congress to approve or disapprove of war. It would be a mistake to appoint anyone to the State Department who was previously convicted for defying Congressional authority.\u201d<\/p>\n Senator Paul is hardly the only observer to see Abrams\u2019 possible\u00a0appointment this way. The\u00a0Washington Post<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>found it surprising Abrams was ever under consideration, acknowledging his resum\u00e9 and reputation as a tough negotiator, but finding little in common with Trump\u2019s foreign policy vision beyond being \u201cfiercely pro-Israel.\u201d Fox News host Tucker Carlson said he was \u201cbaffled<\/a>\u201d while interviewing Senator Paul about his op-ed. Doug Bandow at\u00a0Forbes<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>said choosing Abrams \u201cwould be a particularly stunning reversal of candidate Trump\u2019s claim to reject his predecessors\u2019 failed policies of perpetual war.\u201d<\/p>\n In short, there is ample reason to believe Trump\u2019s decision was about more than \u201cthin skin,\u201d and his skin didn\u2019t have to be very thin to think\u00a0Abrams wouldn\u2019t be a good fit for an administration he previously regarded as an improbable catastrophe. Six weeks of non-stop leaking and bureaucratic sabotage might understandably have reduced the president\u2019s tolerance for a Number Two official at the State Department who (according to Senator Paul) once declared Donald Trump unfit to occupy the chair where Washington and Lincoln once sat\u2014but evidently had no such reservations about Hillary Clinton.<\/p>\n
\nBREITBART<\/p>\n