Phil Giraldi alerts us to some of the bad appointments Trump may end up making. Here is one example:
“ Another former CIA officer who is a particularly polarizing figure and is apparently being looked at for high office is Clare Lopez, who has claimed that the Obama White House is infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood. Lopez is regarded by the Trump team as “one of the intellectual thought leaders about why we have to fight back against radical Islam.” She has long been associated with the Center for Security Policy, headed by Frank Gaffney, a fanatical hardliner who believes that Saddam Hussein was involved in both the 1993 World Trade Center attack and the Oklahoma City bombing, that Americans for Tax Reform head Grover Norquist is a secret agent of the Muslim Brotherhood, that Gen. David Petraeus has “submitted to Sharia,” and that the logo of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency reveals “official U.S. submission to Islam” because it “appears ominously to reflect a morphing of the Islamic crescent and star.”
The chance that Lopez or others connected with Gaffney will end up in important positions seems certain to increase now that Frank Gaffney himself has reportedly joined the transition team to “assist on national security issues.” There is even some talk that Gaffney might be considered as a possible nominee for CIA director. That last one seems like a long shot, but if he’s part of the transition team in any way that would still be horrifying.
As if all that weren’t bad enough, Lopez would also be another possible Trump appointee who has been a booster for the Mujahideen-e Khalq over the last few years. Lopez has referred to MEK members as “pro-democracy Iranian patriots,” which would come as news to almost all Iranians and especially to the group’s former members. She has also called for direct U.S. support of the MEK, and has engaged in the usual whitewashing of its record and its ideology that we have come to expect from the group’s supporters.
Eli Clifton concludes a recent report on Lopez and the other pro-MEK figures around Trump this way:
If Lopez, Giuliani, Bolton, or Gingrich serve in the Trump administrations, the MEK will have the highest level access it’s ever enjoyed in the U.S. government, a remarkable journey for a fringe Islamic-Marxist group that, until 2012, was on the State Department’s terrorism list for its role in assassinating Americans.
Leaving aside the obvious danger these people pose on Iran policy, it is further proof of Trump’s poor judgment that so many people that have been flacking for a foreign totalitarian cult are being seriously considered to serve in his administration.
By Daniel Larison