President Is Turning On Officials He Picked

By Olivia Beavers, Josh Dawsey and Tarini Parti

After months of pushing out career government officials and Democratic holdovers, President Trump is starting to turn on some of his own picks.

On Wednesday, the White House said it was firing Trump’s director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a top public health agency, one month after she was confirmed by the Senate. The White House said she wasn’t aligned with the president. Several other top officials at the agency resigned in response.

This past week’s turmoil followed ousters at other agencies. Trump replaced the head of the Internal Revenue Service less than two months into the job because the appointee, Billy Long, clashed with officials at the Treasury Department. Two top Justice Department antitrust officials were removed from their roles after clashing with senior officials at the agency whom they accused of cutting deals with favored lobbyists, and one of them has publicly questioned the integrity of other DOJ offi-

cials. The White House also removed the acting FEMA administrator after he said the agency should continue to exist, contradicting others in the administration.

In recent days, Trump, a Republican, also pushed his Treasury secretary to fire the agency’s second in command and installed a second deputy at the FBI after the White House soured on the first.

The firings are separate from his attempts to remove dozens of other personnel he didn’t appoint, including a Federal Reserve governor, a top official at the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, prosecutors who investigated him and a coterie of leaders across the government, such as the Na-tional Archivist.

“No administration has seen more chaos in its leadership ranks than the Trump administration other than Trump one. He begins by being right, and if anyone challenges his worldview, they need to go away,” said Max Stier, who leads the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit that tracks hiring and firing.

Brad Todd, a Republican strategist with ties to the Trump administration, said the firings are part of Trump trying to implement an aggressive agenda. “The voters pick one person to lead the executive branch, and that means that person gets to choose every other person,” Todd said.

Trump approached his second term seemingly determined to avoid the high-level turnover that defined his first, when officials from the Republican establishment tried to curb some of his most dramatic impulses and quit in protest. In January, Trump stacked his new administration with officials vetted for loyalty, and he hasn’t removed any Cabinet secretaries yet. The White House has been run more effectively than his first administration, allies said. White House officials said Trump had only grown frustrated with one cabinet secretary, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and she has buttressed her position with Trump in recent weeks by focusing on pursuing other p e r c e i v e d Trump foes.

The White House has also started to look into one of Trump’s longest- serving aides, Corey Lewandowski, now in an unpaid advisory role at the Department of Homeland Security, according to people familiar with the matter. The probe stems from allegations Lewandowski tried to skirt rules that limit how long he can stay in the role, the people said.

White House spokeswoman Liz Huston didn’t address any of the particular departures but said the president “assembled the best and brightest administration in history to deliver on his promise to Make America Great Again from securing the border to delivering the largest middle class tax cuts in history to restoring law and order on our streets.” The firings stem from different reasons, White House officials said. In some cases, officials explicitly attributed the departures to what they viewed as improper political interference. An associate of the fired CDC Director, Susan Monarez, said she was pushed out in part because she wouldn’t dismiss senior leaders, which she believed was illegal without cause. “The president has the authority to fire those who are not aligned with this mission,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. White House officials said that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. originally approved of her nomination but quickly soured on her over vaccines and fights over grants and asked for authority to remove her.

Michael Faulkender, Trump’s choice for deputy Treasury secretary whom the Senate confirmed in March, departed recently after Trump was convinced he wasn’t aligned with his overall vision, The Wall Street Journal has reported. Faulkender’s departure was announced by Laura Loomer, the right-wing Trump ally who often highlights what she argues is disloyalty within his administration. Faulkender didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Cameron Hamilton, the acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency who was removed from his post, also clashed with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who ordered him to take a polygraph exam after public reports surfaced about her efforts to dismantle the agency.

Long, who served as IRS chief for less than two months, was reassigned to serve as Trump’s pick for U.S. Ambassador to Iceland following disputes with Trump’s Treasury secretary. A senior administration official said Long fought with other Treasury Department officials and privately told the White House he was overwhelmed in the job. Long didn’t respond to a request for comment.

White House lawyers have looked into whether Lewandowski has bent the rules to prolong his time at DHS, people familiar with the matter said. As a special government employee, Lewandowski’s government service is capped at 130 days per year.

Lewandowski has amassed power at the department in a way that has concerned top officials, according to people familiar with the matter.

A spokeswoman for DHS said a career official tracks Lewandowski’s work days.