[ad_1]
At the Pentagon, Miller was angry that agency management had slowed down Mr. Ellis’ payout for months despite going through the standard recruiting process and being selected for the job. post, a senior US official said. Mr. Miller therefore ordered the agency to swear an oath to Mr. Ellis, a move the Washington Post reported on Saturday.
Mr. Ellis is considered a smart lawyer. But the desire to install him in a permanent government post has baffled some. According to former officials, he is likely to enter the attorney general’s office under a lot of suspicion and will have an uphill battle to win General Nakasone’s trust.
Mr. Ellis will be a member of the Senior Executive Service, a civil service position that offers strong protections against dismissal. However, officials can be easily moved into the Defense Department, so he could be given a legal post elsewhere in the sprawling department – overseeing compliance with environmental regulations at a remote military base, for example.
While on the Intelligence Committee, Mr. Ellis was a trusted advisor to Rep. Devin Nunes, Republican of California. Mr. Ellis has held a variety of positions in the Trump administration, including serving as an attorney for the National Security Council and then as senior intelligence director for the White House.
At the White House, Mr Ellis overturned a career official’s decision to release Mr Bolton’s book for publication, even though he had no formal training in classifying national security information. The Justice Department, under pressure from President Trump, sued Mr. Bolton to recoup his profits on the book.
A judge handling the case issued a ruling Thursday that makes it very likely that Mr Bolton’s attorney, Charles J. Cooper, could question White House officials like Mr Ellis about whether the classification decisions have been taken in bad faith. If Mr Ellis takes over as General Counsel, at least for a while, he may be able to block that testimony.
Early in Mr. Trump’s tenure, Mr. Ellis provided Mr. Nunes with intelligence reports that Mr. Trump’s associates had been taken under foreign surveillance by U.S. intelligence agencies. The hardware is at the heart of Mr. Trump’s frequent accusation that the Obama administration spied on his campaign.
[ad_2]
Source link