The Leadership Conference Condemns Trump Administration’s Military Purge

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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WASHINGTON — Maya Wiley, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, issued the following statement following the late-night military purges by the Trump administration:

“The Trump administration purge of senior officers and JAGs, including the Joint Chiefs Chairman, General Charles Q. Brown, a four-star fighter pilot he previously appointed and praised and Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead the Navy, is highly troubling for several reasons. First and foremost, the military swears an oath to the Constitution not to a President. Presidents have power to appoint but in this instance, an unconventional candidate who appears to have significantly less qualifications than General Brown and who reportedly endeared himself to the President, rather than earned the position, should trouble every American. Let’s not avoid the facts before us. The Trump administration is removing many of these officers because they are Black and because they are women or because they are deemed insufficiently loyal to the President. Removing the JAGs – the military’s lawyers – should cause deep bipartisan concern about the administration’s motives. This President is more concerned with driving division than ensuring national security and that the qualified rise in rank.

“From the Pentagon to the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, we are witnessing purges of people because of who they are and not what they can do, because they appear or believed to value unity over division, and because this administration doesn’t care about qualifications or our national security or rule of law.

“The end game here is sinister. For years, Trump has said he wants an officer corps loyal to him, including going so far as to say he wanted the kinds of generals Hitler had. These latest purges should not surprise us, but they should produce national and bipartisan outrage.  Many famous senior officers have been removed in the past by commanders-in-chief, but not because they look like America and not because they will do their duty. We must not pretend that these firings are not a sign of a weakened, divided and significantly less competent and constitutional system of national security.”

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 240 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership Conference works toward an America as good as its ideals. For more information on The Leadership Conference and its member organizations, visit www.civilrights.org.

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