The Biden administration has asked 12 officials appointed to military service academy advisory boards by former President Donald Trump to resign or be dismissed.
The officials asked to resign include prominent former Trump officials like former White House press secretary Sean Spicer, former senior counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway and former national security adviser H.R. McMaster. They were appointed to the advisory boards of the Naval Academy, Air Force Academy and West Point respectively.White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Wednesday afternoon confirmed the request had been made.”The President’s objective is what any president’s objective is — to ensure you have nominees and people serving on these boards who are qualified to serve on them and who are aligned with your values. And so yes, that was an ask that was made,” Psaki told reporters at a White House briefing.Psaki added: “I will let others evaluate whether they think Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer and others were qualified, or not political, to serve on these boards, but the President’s qualification requirements are not your party registration, they are whether you’re qualified to serve and whether you’re aligned with the values of this administration.”
This move breaks from the tradition of appointees from previous administrations being allowed to serve all three years of their appointments to the military service academies.
The boards of the Military Academy at West Point, Naval Academy in Annapolis and Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs are made up of a mix of lawmakers and presidential appointees who traditionally meet several times a year to provide non-binding advice on issues like curriculum, student morale and institution needs.Non-lawmaker members typically serve three-year terms, even across presidential administrations. Several members appointed by President Barack Obama at the end of his term served several years into the Trump administration, including Sue Fulton, President Joe Biden’s nominee for Assistant Secretary for Manpower and Reserve Affairs at the Pentagon, who served on the West Point panel.
Kellyanne Conway, one of Trump’s most effective advisors, stressed that she had no intention of resigning.
Kellyanne Conway hit back at President Biden on Wednesday after he demanded her resignation from a military service academy advisory board, saying: ‘I’m not resigning but you should.’…Conway said she would not be resigning from the Board of Visitors to the Air Force Academy and accused Biden of trying to distract from political crises that were engulfing his administration.She said his request was a break from presidential norms.’It certainly seems petty and political, if not personal,’ she wrote in a letter posted on Twitter.’The result is that faithful and willing public servants will be discouraged or thwarted from service.’Our service academies risk being further politicized and polarized.’
Conway also made an alternative suggestion to Biden, which many of us hope he will follow.
It is hard to overstate the level of affection the non-elite members of the US military have for President Trump. This move will further erode morale among the men and women who serve. However, the action taken by Biden certainly fits into America-harming policies perfectly.
As a reminder, here is President Trump’s address to the US Air Force Academy in 2019. Trump then shook the hand of every cadet afterward.
Biden doesn’t seem to be achieving quite the same kind of response on campuses.
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