WT: President Trump said Wednesday he’ll nominate Kirstjen Nielsen, a longtime Bush administration official and now top aide to White House chief of staff John F. Kelly, to be the new head of Homeland Security.
The move would be a big leap for Ms. Nielsen, the principal deputy chief of staff, who has never run an operation the size of the massive Homeland Security apparatus, which includes 230,000 employees and spans everything from the Secret Service and disaster response to three agencies that handle immigration.
It would also mark a major shift at the department from Mr. Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general who was Mr. Trump’s first Homeland Security secretary.
As former head of U.S. Southern Command, Mr. Kelly had extensive experience with the players and the issues in the immigration debate and made major strides during his six months in changing the department’s focus from the more relaxed approach of the Obama administration.
Ms. Nielsen’s chief government experience, meanwhile, came with President George W. Bush. She served on Mr. Bush’s homeland security council, and in the Transportation Security Administration, which is part of the department she would take over. read more
Don’t know her but consider me extremely skeptical, just because. A Dubya admin. retread? Good grief that sounds terrible right there to begin with. These people are lifer bureaucrats and aren’t exactly bold or innovative. Is she going to shut down the TSA? When she does that she gets a gold star.
This article seems very misleading to me. It makes it sound like she is going from WH Deputy Chief of Staff, serving under Kelly when, in fact, she was Kelly’s DHS Chief of Staff and has served as Acting Director of DHS even while serving as Kelly’s deputy in the WH. At least that was my understanding of things while the hurricane crises befell TX, FL and PR. Here’s a bit of her bio from WikiP:
“Kirstjen Nielson”. Center for Homeland Security, George Washington University. Archived from the original on September 7, 2017. Retrieved September 9, 2017. “Kirstjen Nielsen is an expert in homeland and national security policy, strategy, and assessment, with a focus in the areas of critical infrastructure protection, including cyber security, preparedness, response and incident management, information sharing, risk assessment, trend analysis and risk management, organizational development, stakeholder requirement analysis, outreach and communication, and training and exercise programs.”
Heard she was a head chopper, sent in to clean out the imbeds. Hope so.
AA, that “bio” from the Wiki sound a lot more like the fluff and buff from a resume. Did you notice that?
In my opinion, Homeland Security’s most important function is cyber security followed by border security. I hope she understands that.
But Lowell, she’s an “expert”. With a “focus” on…
“…critical infrastructure protection, including cyber security, preparedness, response and incident management, information sharing, risk assessment, trend analysis and risk management, organizational development, stakeholder requirement analysis, outreach and communication, and training and exercise programs.”
…and a partridge in a pear tree. That looks like the opposite of “focus” to me.
“and a partridge in a pear tree.”
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Has the creation of DHS actually increased security, or only bureaucracy?
Just Al, I think it has increased the security of the homeland department.
Lowell — It was shift change for the cats at our house, so being about O-Dark-Early, I just grabbed whatever I could of background. 🙂 I think Trump is going off what he saw in way of execution of the job during those crises and was pleased with her performance. 13 seasons of The Apprentice? I’m sure Kelly doesn’t choose resumes over substance, either. Just a guess based on his own background.
How about we do without DHS entirely – lot of $$$ spent with little result.