There’s the megadonor with no military service tapped to lead U.S. Navy. Then there’s Peter Navarro, recently released from federal prison—tapped as trade adviser. But according to a recent article from The Guardian, Donald Trump saved his worst choices for State Department’s foreign service.
The article notes how Trump’s frenetic pace of ambassador appointments “has broken new ground with the sheer volume of ambassadorial nominations, and his lack of consideration of their professional suitability.”
In an interview with Dennis Jett, author and professor of international relations at Penn State University, Guardian reporter Robert Tait listed Trump’s Rogues Gallery of profoundly unqualified operatives. Many if not all of the nominees will likely be familiar to TrumpFile readers.
- Charles Kushner for France. Father of Jared Kushner, Charles is a pardoned felon who perpetrated “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes,” according to Chris Christie.
- Kimberly Guilfoyle for Greece. Until recently Donald Trump Jr.’s romantic partner (and ex wife of California governor Gavin Newsom), Guilfoyle is not being “shunted off” by this appointment, according to People magazine’s anonymous source.
- Herschel Walker for Bahamas. Most-recently a failed-GOP candidate for senator in Georgia, Walker was a reliable mouthpiece for Trump’s “Stop the Steal” disinformation and campaigned with January 6th terrorists.
- Matt Whitaker for NATO. Purveyor of “masculine toilets” and former-acting Attorney General under the first Trump Administration, Whitaker has no diplomatic experience and has a background in law enforcement (among other things).
- Tom Barrack for Turkey. Longtime-Trump associate and exonerated foreign asset Barrack was put forward for a key assignment in a country “playing a strategic role in the political fallout in Syria after the toppling of Bashar al-Assad during a time of deep unrest.”
Even with notable lack of experience in other pics, Jett highlighted the Mike Huckabee appointment as the most perverse of them all:
The overall [candidate] quality is the worst ever, according to Jett – who singled out Mike Huckabee, the nominee for ambassador to Israel as the poorest pick. Huckabee, an avowed Christian Zionist, has denied that the West Bank is under military occupation – a status broadly recognised by the international community – and seems an unlikely interlocutor for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Jett, former ambassador to Mozambique and Peru, pulled no punches in describing Trump’s selection methods. “What’s amazing about Trump is it’s almost like, ‘OK, who are the worst people we can come up with?’ We seem to be going out of our way to prove we are not a serious country.”
