Thread: D.C. National Guard Chief Fired Days Before Trump Inauguration: "The Timing Is Extrem

D.C. National Guard Chief Fired Days Before Trump Inauguration: "The Timing Is Extremely Unusual"


by Tyler Durden
Jan 13, 2017 4:50 PM

"It doesn’t make sense to can the general in the middle of an active deployment," rages D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) after Maj. Gen. Errol R. Schwartz, who heads the D.C. National Guard and is an integral part of overseeing the inauguration, has been ordered removed from command effective Jan. 20, 12:01 p.m., just as Donald Trump is sworn in as president.



As The Washington Post reports, Maj. Gen. Errol R. Schwartz’s departure will come in the midst of the presidential ceremony, classified as a national special security event — and while thousands of his troops are deployed to help protect the nation’s capital during an inauguration he has spent months helping to plan.

“The timing is extremely unusual,” Schwartz said in an interview Friday morning, confirming a memo announcing his ouster that was obtained by The Washington Post.

During the inauguration, Schwartz would command not only the members of the D.C. guard but also an additional 5,000 unarmed troops sent in from across the country to help. He also would oversee military air support protecting the nation’s capital during the inauguration.

“My troops will be on the street,” Schwartz, who turned 65 in October, said, “I’ll see them off but I won’t be able to welcome them back to the armory.” He said that he would “never plan to leave a mission in the middle of a battle.”

Schwartz, who was appointed to head the guard by President George W. Bush in 2008, maintained the position through President Obama’s two terms. He said his orders came from the Pentagon but that he doesn’t know who made the decision.

D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) blasted the decision to remove Schwartz, especially on Inauguration Day.

“It doesn’t make sense to can the general in the middle of an active deployment,” Mendelson said. He added that Schwartz’s sudden departure would be a long-term loss for the District. “He’s been really very good at working with the community and my impression was that he was good for the Guard.”

Unlike in states, where the governor appoints the National Guard commander, in the District that duty falls to the president.

Schwartz said that he has not been told why he was asked to step down. “I’m a soldier,” he said, noting that he was following orders and has no regrets. “I’m a presidential appointee, therefore the president has the power to remove me.”

Is this just another part of Obama's "smooth" transition? Or is something even more sinister at work here, since we already know that anti-Trump activists are planning "the biggest protest in US history" on the day of the inauguration?
* * *
As we noted previously, radical leftists are planning to make January 20th the most chaotic Inauguration Day in American history. Their stated goal is to “disrupt” the Inauguration festivities as much as possible, and they are planning a wide range of “actions” to achieve that stated goal. Some of the more moderate groups are using terms such as “civil resistance” and “civil disobedience”, but others are openly talking about “blockades”, jumping barricades, throwing projectiles and “citywide paralysis”. My hope is that all of their efforts will turn out to be a big flop, but it is important to understand that these groups are well funded, highly organized and extremely motivated. The election of Donald Trump has been perhaps the single most galvanizing moment for the radical left in modern American history, and they are working very hard to turn January 20th into a major political statement.

In fact, just recently one activist group took out a full page ad in the New York Times…

Thousands of activists, journalists, scientists, entertainers, and other prominent voices took out a full-page call to action in the New York Times on Wednesday making clear their rejection of President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence with the simple message: “No!”

“Stop the Trump/Pence regime before it starts! In the name of humanity we refuse to accept a fascist America!” the ad states, followed by a list of signatories that includes scholar Cornel West; author Alice Walker; Chase Iron Eyes of the Standing Rock Sioux; educator Bill Ayers; poet Saul Williams; CNN‘s Marc Lamont Hill; Carl Dix of the Communist Party USA; and numerous others.

The ad pointed people to refusefascism.org, and it asserted that Trump must be stopped whether he was legitimately elected or not…

Trump promises to inflict repression and suffering on people in this country, to deport millions, to increase violence up to the use of nuclear weapons on people across the globe, and to inflict catastrophes upon the planet itself. He has assembled a cabinet of Christian fundamentalist fanatics, war mongers, racists, science deniers. NO! His regime must not be allowed to consolidate. We REFUSE to accept a Fascist America!

If you go to refusefascism.org, you will discover that the protests that they are organizing in Washington D.C. will begin on January 14th. They say that they want to “stop the Trump-Pence regime before it starts”, and they hope to have protests going “every day and every night” without interruption through at least January 20th.

Another group that plans to kick things off on January 14th is DisruptJ20. Of course that is short for “Disrupt January 20th”. If you go to their official website, you will find a long slate of events that have already been scheduled.

According to Legba Carrefour, a spokesperson for DisruptJ20, one of the goals of the group is to block major transportation routes into and throughout our nation’s capital. And he is not shy about the fact that they literally want to “shut down the Inauguration”…

“We are planning to shut down the inauguration, that’s the short of it,” he says. “We’re pretty literal about that, we are trying to create citywide paralysis on a level that I don’t think has been seen in D.C. before. We’re trying to shut down pretty much every ingress into the city as well as every checkpoint around the actual inauguration parade route.”

If Carrefour and his fellow conspirators are able to actually accomplish that, it truly would be unprecedented.

And while DisruptJ20 is not publicly advocating violence, they are not exactly discouraging it either…

Carrefour says DisruptJ20 has no publicly announced plans to jump barricades along the inauguration parade route or throw projectiles at the new president, but that autonomous direct actions are encouraged.

“I can’t comment on specific stuff we’re doing like that, mostly because that would be illegal. But, yeah, it will get pretty crazy, I expect,” he says. “‘Have fun!’ I say.”

After the rioting that we have seen in Baltimore, Ferguson, Charlotte and many other communities around the nation in recent years, I hope that authorities are taking these threats quite seriously.

Once Donald Trump won the election, many conservatives seemed to think that the war was won. But the truth of the matter is that many on the left were completely blindsided by Trump’s surprise victory, and now that they are fully awake they are gearing up for battle like never before.

And these protests are not going to end on January 20th. In fact, abortion advocates are hoping to get close to a million women into Washington D.C. on the day following the Inauguration to protest for abortion rights. Filmmaker Michael Moore is hoping that this march will be the beginning of “100 days of resistance” against Trump’s presidency…

Filmmaker and liberal icon Michael Moore has announced his plans to attend the Women’s March on Washington to protest Donald Trump’s inauguration later this month and has called for sore loser liberals to go further — by staging protests acts of resistance through the first 100 days of Trump’s presidency.

In an appearance, this weekend on MSNBC’s The Last Word, the 62-year-old Trumpland and Fahrenheit 9/11 director made a “call to arms” to those opposed to Trump’s presidency to join the Women’s March on Washington scheduled for January 21, the day after the presidential inauguration.

“It’s important that everybody go there,” Moore told MSNBC’s Ari Melber.

Of course it is easy to imagine how all of this could spiral wildly out of control. If Trump cracks down on these protests really hard in an attempt to restore law and order, that could end up sparking a dramatic backlash against his “police state tactics”. And if the protests become even bigger and more violent, Trump could respond by cracking down even more harshly.

Let us hope for some really cold weather in D.C. at the end of January so that as many troublemakers as possible get discouraged and stay home. Violent protests, blockades and riots aren’t going to solve anything, and they could easily open fresh wounds in a nation that is becoming more divided with each passing day.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-13/dc-national-guard-chief-fired-days-trump-inauguration-timing-extremely-unusual

Why would they do that? Makes no sense at all! What's up with the Army??!!! Someone needs to investigate and spill the beans on the replacement.

If he is a Presidential Appointee there is a reason he is stepping down on inauguration day and it has nothing to do with Obama. Let us hope they can quell any rioting and keep our new President safe during his inauguration. Left Wing media has created a climate of hate against our new President and we cannot let them succeed in trying to take him down.

by WARNER TODD HUSTON
14 Jan 2017
Washington D.C.
2,776 comments

The Washington Post wrote on Friday that President-elect Donald J. Trump “fired” the commanding General of the D.C. National Guard who is heading up the military presence during the coming inaugural event — in the middle of the oath of office ceremony. Yet a second story on Saturday did not contain the claim.

The Post’s original report set off a wave of stories across the world, causing raised eyebrows over Trump’s “extremely unusual” decision to fire a general in the middle of the presidential oath of office ceremony, especially during these dangerous times.

The paper reported that Major General Errol R. Schwartz, who has commanded the D.C. National Guard since his appointment to the position by George W. Bush, was told to vacate his office the moment Trump says his “I dos” to the oath of office. The decision was presented to readers as unfathomable, if not dangerous, by a president who doesn’t know what he is doing.

In an interview, General Schwartz told the paper that his firing was strange. “The timing is extremely unusual,” the general said.

“My troops will be on the street,” Schwartz continued. “I’ll see them off, but I won’t be able to welcome them back to the armory.” The general added he would “never plan to leave a mission in the middle of a battle.”

The paper went on to quote Democrat D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson as saying, “It doesn’t make sense to can the general in the middle of an active deployment.”

The paper concluded its speculation, saying, “Schwartz said that he has not been told why he was asked to step down. ‘I’m a soldier,’ he said, noting that he was following orders and has no regrets. ‘I’m a presidential appointee, therefore the president has the power to remove me.'”

An earlier version of the story can still be seen at Stars And Stripes.

The fact is, of course, that the commander of the D.C. National Guard serves at the pleasure of the president and is not put in place by the Pentagon or any of the federal branches of the military.

But the Post’s early reporting on the “firing” of General Schwartz contains no statements from the Trump transition office and also leaves out key points such as the fact that the general of the D.C. National Guard traditionally supplies his letter of resignation to every new president who is about to take office.

Subsequent to the publishing of the paper’s story making Trump appear incompetent, news emerged that the incoming Trump administration offered to let General Schwartz keep his position through inauguration day, but it was the general himself who refused the offer, preferring instead to quit at 12 noon on January 20, the hour Trump takes his oath of office.

The general then ran straight to the media to “argue his case in the press,” as a recent Fox News report noted.



In essence, while the incoming Trump White House did accept General Schwartz’ resignation, it did not “fire him” in “the midst of the presidential ceremony,” as the Washington Post reported on Friday.

Meanwhile, on the day after its initial publication, the Post made material edits to its story. And as of press time, the paper had not added any notice that it had made the alterations.

The current version of the story now on the paper’s website added two important paragraphs that change the flavor of its earlier story.

Among other changes, one of the paragraphs added makes it clear that it is customary for such generals to submit their resignation, and in this case Trump accepted it. The paragraph also tries to cover for the paper’s poor reporting by insisting that the Trump team “provided contradictory versions” of the general’s situation — another fact not in the original story.

Despite its changes, the Washington Post story did not contain the statement — aired by Fox News on Saturday — that the transition had asked the general to stay until inauguration day was over, but it was the general who decided to quit. According to the Fox News report, “It appears the general would rather argue his case in the press.”

Schwartz, who started his Army career in 1976 but has never seen a deployment to a theater of war, was appointed to head the D.C. Guard by George W. Bush in 2008. According to his bio page, he was first commissioned in 1979 and has served his entire career in the D.C. Guard. Schwartz has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and a Master of Science in Business Management.

This is far from the first time the paper made a big splash with a story only to quietly rewrite it the next day when it found its assertions in question. The Washington Post recently courted charges of “fake news” when it published the shocking story that the Russians hacked and infiltrated the computer systems of a Vermont power plant. By the next day, the paper completely rewrote its story, disavowing that any hack took place.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...guard-general/

I just knew that was a fake news story. I'm telling you, Trump is making a list. These stories will not be forgotten any time soon. And Tweets are coming WaPo. If you wanted a seat on the front row at the White House Press Conferences, well guess what? You're going to lose your seat to a reporter from .... Iowa.

You all are going to the back of the line. And in a room of 300, that's waaaay back. They don't even have mics back there, you'll have to holler and he still won't hear you and what's better than that is WE WON'T HEAR YOU!!

It's totally disgusting what you've done and are still doing. The National Inquirer has more integrity than most of our MSM.