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More fake news .
Fake News, Exposed
In an article on the Atlantic website, a former Obama White House staffer explains why she resigned from the Trump White House after only eight days. Rumana Ahmed thought she should "try to stay on the NSC staff during the Trump Administration" she writes, "in order to give the new president and his aides a more nuanced view of Islam, and of America's Muslim citizens."
But then the executive order suspending visa issuance for Syrian refugees and suspending it temporarily for nationals of seven Muslim majority countries forced her hand. She quit. She "had to leave because it was an insult walking into this country's most historic building every day under an administration that is working against and vilifying everything I stand for as an American and as a Muslim."
When I emailed the editor of the Atlantic to ask for clarification regarding Ahmed's employment status in the White House, Atlantic magazine senior director for communications Anna Bross replied: "Rumana Ahmed was a direct hire by the NSC and not a political appointee. She was staff and planned to stay on."
That's wrong. Ahmed was a political appointee in the Obama White House. According to Trump White House officials, it was very late in her tenure in the Obama administration when she applied for a civil service position with administrative duties. "Burrowing," as it's commonly called, is the process through which political appointees move into career government status. She was granted her new status at the end of January, just as the Trump team was moving into the White House. That is, Ahmed took the highly unusual step for a White House staffer of choosing a considerably less ambitious career path in government, as she went from a junior policy position to a secretarial post.
Why? Because as a political appointee from the Obama administration she was inevitably going to be replaced by a Trump appointee and she wanted to stay on. And yet in only four days—not eight, because, say sources, she took several days off—she came to the conclusion that she had failed in her attempt to influence the Trump team, which in fact "was attacking the basic tenets of democracy."
Fake News, Exposed
In an article on the Atlantic website, a former Obama White House staffer explains why she resigned from the Trump White House after only eight days. Rumana Ahmed thought she should "try to stay on the NSC staff during the Trump Administration" she writes, "in order to give the new president and his aides a more nuanced view of Islam, and of America's Muslim citizens."
But then the executive order suspending visa issuance for Syrian refugees and suspending it temporarily for nationals of seven Muslim majority countries forced her hand. She quit. She "had to leave because it was an insult walking into this country's most historic building every day under an administration that is working against and vilifying everything I stand for as an American and as a Muslim."
When I emailed the editor of the Atlantic to ask for clarification regarding Ahmed's employment status in the White House, Atlantic magazine senior director for communications Anna Bross replied: "Rumana Ahmed was a direct hire by the NSC and not a political appointee. She was staff and planned to stay on."
That's wrong. Ahmed was a political appointee in the Obama White House. According to Trump White House officials, it was very late in her tenure in the Obama administration when she applied for a civil service position with administrative duties. "Burrowing," as it's commonly called, is the process through which political appointees move into career government status. She was granted her new status at the end of January, just as the Trump team was moving into the White House. That is, Ahmed took the highly unusual step for a White House staffer of choosing a considerably less ambitious career path in government, as she went from a junior policy position to a secretarial post.
Why? Because as a political appointee from the Obama administration she was inevitably going to be replaced by a Trump appointee and she wanted to stay on. And yet in only four days—not eight, because, say sources, she took several days off—she came to the conclusion that she had failed in her attempt to influence the Trump team, which in fact "was attacking the basic tenets of democracy."