Trump puts loyalist previously sent to investigate MI6’s Christopher Steele in key Pentagon position

A Republican congressman’s staffer who was sent to London to “investigate” MI6 officer Christopher Steele over his dossier on Donald Trump has been appointed to a key role in an unprecedented  takeover of the Pentagon by the president’s team.  

The Democrats have expressed grave concern about what has been described as a “coup” in the heart of the US military with a raft of senior officials being replaced by Trump loyalists following his firing of defence secretary Mark Esper.

Kashyap “Kash” Patel has been named as chief of staff to Chris Miller, who has been appointed acting defence secretary by Trump. Other appointees include Anthony Tata, a retired brigadier general who once called Barack Obama a “terrorist leader”, and Douglas Macgregor, a former colonel  who referred to refugees and migrants to Europe as “ Muslim invaders” and called for martial law at the Mexican border.

Patel, who joined from the National Security Council,  had worked for congressman Devin Nunes, who had to step down at one stage as the chairperson of House Intelligence Affairs Committee, after being exposed over secret contacts with the White House over the investigation into Trump’s Russian connections.  

In August 2017 Patel visited London with another Nunes staffer, Doug Presley, on what a committee official described as “an intelligence gathering trip”. The US embassy in London was unaware of the visit by Patel and Presley, neither were the British Foreign Office, the Republican Representative Mike Conaway – who had taken over from Nunes as chairperson in the committee – and its senior Democrat, Adam Schiff.

Patel and Presley attempted to meet Steele, whose dossier on Trump allegedly being the Muscovian candidate for the White House had become a major factor in the Russia investigation. Not finding him there they went to his lawyer’s offices but were turned away.

An astonishing number of senior people in the Pentagon have been replaced by Republican partisans in the last few days as Trump continues to insist that he has won the presidential election and Joe Biden has lost.

Tata takes over from the undersecretary of defence for policy, James Anderson. The undersecretary of defence for intelligence, Vice Admiral Joseph Kernan, a former navy Seal, has been replaced by Ezra Cohen-Warnick, a former aide to Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser who was convicted of perjury in the investigation by the special counsel Robert Mueller. Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, overseeing the stockpile of nuclear warheads, was forced to resign last Friday.

Trump has named Michael Ellis as general counsel at the National Security Agency over the objections of its director general Paul Nakasone. There have been reports that Trump intended to sack Christopher Wray, the FBI director, and Gina Haspel, the head of the CIA. In what is viewed as a signal of support, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, had invited Haspel to his office, and the Republican Senator John Cornyn tweeted that “intelligence should not be partisan”. The gestures of support led to an immediate attack, on Twitter, from the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr, a fierce critic of Haspel.

Adam Smith, the Democrat chairperson of the House Armed Services Committee,  said: “It is hard to overstate just how dangerous high-level turnover at the Department of Defence is during a period of presidential transition. 

“The top policy professional in the department resigning the day after the secretary of defence was fired could all mark the beginning of a process of gutting the DoD – something that should alarm all Americans.”

There is no clear explanation for the changes. There is apprehension that they have taken place to clear the way for action home and abroad by the Trump administration as bitter political turbulence continues following the polls.  

Esper’s days were said to have been numbered after he refused White House orders to allow the military to be deployed in the streets during the Black Lives Matter protests. That option, however, will be available if the new defence secretary proves to be more pliant, with the possibility of outbreaks of violence in the escalating confrontation.

Another theory is that Trump may order military action overseas, covert or overt, possibly with strikes against Iran, as a distraction from the internal domestic problems and claim that the US need to avoid a divisive change of administration during a military emergency.  

Esper had repeatedly sought to lower tensions following Trump’s threats of military action against Tehran. The defence secretary has stressed “the United States is not seeking a war with Iran. We are seeking a diplomatic solution.”  After the president threatened to bomb Iranian cultural sites, the defence secretary wanted to stress that the Pentagon had no plans to do so. Esper also contradicted Trump’s claims that Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated on the president’s orders, was plotting attacks on American embassies around the world.

Another scenario is that Trump will act on his demands  to declassify intelligence documents which,  he and his supporters, say will prove that claims of complicity between the Trump campaign and Russia over the 2016 election was a hoax.  One of the reasons for the animosity against Haspel has been her stance that intelligence must not be made public.

Although some of the allegations made by Steele in his dossier have proved to be true, others have not. And the former MI6 officer has been a particular target for Trump and his team, with the president demanding last summer that he be extradited to the US.

Patel has long been involved in efforts to discredit the Russia allegations faced by Trump. In February 2018 he was named as one of the authors of a memo by Nunes which purported to show the results of the house investigation into the matter clearing the president. The Democrats charged that the contents had been doctored.  

After Steele and the Russian inquiry, Patel was embroiled in controversy during Trump’s impeachment over claims that he had pressurised the Ukrainian government to open an investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter.  

Fiona Hill, a former senior National Security Council official specialising in Russian and European affairs, told a house hearing that “Patel was improperly becoming involved in Ukraine policy and was sending information to Mr Trump”. Patel has denied the charge, telling CBS that he was “never a back channel to President Trump on Ukraine matters, at all, ever”.