Trump’s zeal for administration firings denigrates public servants

It should not be this hard to serve your country.

That’s what deposed Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin told the country as he followed a train of dedicated public servants out the door for apparently less-than-enthusiastic endorsements of the impetuous and vindictive management style of President Donald Trump.

{mosads}In perhaps his last turn on the national stage, Shulkin blamed his ouster on wrongheaded efforts to privatize the VA to reward a few at the expense of undermining care for millions veterans, and vowed to stay committed to resist privatization.

He joins FBI Director James Comey, fired for failing to pledge his loyalty to Trump and refusing to drop his investigation of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn while investigating Trump’s campaign’s ties to Russia; Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, fired hours before he became eligible for a pension in retaliation for being willing to provide corroborating evidence that Comey’s firing was an effort to obstruct justice; and H.R. McMaster, who preferred professionals to walk-on amateurs with seeming conflicts of interest in matters of national security.

Others have simply quit, overwhelmed by the chaos and incompetence of a man who declines expert advice in favor of telegenic talking heads. Place in that category Joseph Yun, the State Department’s special representative for North Korea policy, who leaves in apparent frustration on the eve of talks between Trump and the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, and Walter Shaub, director of the Office of Government Ethics, who was critical of the president’s failure to meet the ethical standards, including divestiture of his private assets, of his predecessors.

White House Communications Director Hope Hicks resigned a day after testifying – and acknowledging “white lies” on Trump’s behalf – before the House Intelligence Committee. White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who seemed uncomfortable from Day One with misleading statements about Trump’s inaugural crowd size, finally stepped down after a remarkable and humiliating stream of exaggerations and falsehoods.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson fell afoul of Trump for disparaging him in private and not deigning to correct the record but also for saying the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain was “clearly” Russia’s doing; for that, he was tweeted out the next day.

Trump’s top economic advisor Gary Cohn, one of the few professionals in what Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) called the West Wing “adult day care center,” acknowledged he was under “enormous pressure” to resign in the wake of Trump’s offensive statements about the “very fine” neo-Nazis who marched through Charlottesville last summer, but ultimately stepped down when his advice on tariff policy was not just ignored but mocked.

High-profile outright firings include former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who Trump had promised his job, and former “Apprentice” contestant Omarosa Manigault for – don’t ask.

Long-suffering Reince Priebus tried to keep the lid on a boiling-over caldron of scandals and embarrassments but finally got the boot in a Trump tweet from Air Force One announcing his successor as Priebus sat on the tarmac at Andrews Air Force Base in the rain.

The many names of those standing on banana peels waiting for a shove include the badgered architect of our renewed war on marijuana and voting rights, Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, and his deputy, Rod J. Rosenstein, both still standing between Trump and his nemesis, the Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Oh, yes: Robert Mueller, a Republican appointed FBI director by presidents of both parties, has been a potential target since at least last June. He has indicted 19 so far and is subpoenaing Trump business records, a Trump “red line.” More than 160 of us in Congress are trying to get a vote on the bipartisan Special Counsel Integrity Act that sets conditions for such firings – before Mueller’s name is added to this list.

The evident pleasure the man in the White House gets from such firings and force-outs is legendary; he first made a name for himself beyond the tabloids with his inane reality television show slogan, “you’re fired.” He now denigrates dedicated public servants with the same sadistic flourish.

It really should not be this hard to serve your country.

Congressman Steve Cohen represents Tennessee’s 9th District.