Yesterday The U.K. Daily Mail reported that President Biden has requested the resignation of 18 Trump-appointed officials who are currently on military academy advisory boards. This is highly unusual as these positions are supposed to be apolitical and have specified terms.
The article reports:
Multiple people appointed to military academy advisory boards by Donald Trump are refusing to resign after the Biden Administration told them to quit or they’d be fired.
Sean Spicer is one of those axed, and decried the other 17 terminations on his Newsmax show Wednesday.
Spicer hit out as fellow appointee Kellyanne Conway wrote in a tweet that Biden should resign instead, and a third board member Russ Vought – former director of the Office of Management and Budget – asserted that he would carry out his three-year term.
The article notes:
He (Sean Spicer) continued, ‘To put this in context. The Biden administration came into office and immediately ordered a stand down and a review for all of the military academies for some unknown still unknown reason. For almost a year we’ve been unable to meet, and then we get this email today. You have to ask why why would they want zero oversight during a challenging period where the academies are dealing with COVID. They’re navigating funding issues.’
Spicer then spoke directly to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, who named him when addressing the resignations and said the appointees should be qualified and ‘aligned with the values’ of the Biden administration.
Spicer, a US Navy veteran, responded by saying, ‘When you wear the uniform, you serve the commander-in-chief. We take an oath as officers to the Constitution, not to a party.’
He added, ‘Each of us chooses how we’re going to serve this country. I won’t ever question how anyone chooses to do that. I won’t question how you choose to do that, Jen. But don’t you dare ever minimize or question my service to this nation. You got it?’
Note Jen Psaki’s statement, “…appointees should be qualified and ‘aligned with the values’ of the Biden administration. ” Exactly what are the values of the Biden administration?
Obviously lawsuits will be filed, and will will see if the court system will uphold the non-partisan character of the boards involved.
Isn’t this the President that promised to unify the country?