The Best People

The White House is expected to pull the nomination of an experienced career diplomat for US ambassador to Qatar and instead tap former one-term Virginia congressman Scott Taylor, multiple sources familiar with the situation tell CNN.

Molly Phee, a career State Department official and former US ambassador to South Sudan, was nominated by the Trump administration in late 2018. However, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee did not act on the nomination before the end of the last congressional session and it and other nominations expired.

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According to a June 2018 report from Foreign Policy, Phee was one of several career officials driven out of the Bureau of International Organization Affairs by Trump political appointee Mari Stull, who allegedly led a quiet campaign of vetting career diplomats for “disloyalty.”

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Fraud allegations against Taylor’s unsuccessful midterm election campaign are currently under investigation by a special prosecutor in Virginia, although Taylor himself is not under investigation.

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Taylor served in the House of Representatives for one term, but narrowly lost his re-election bid to Democrat Elaine Luria in November 2018. His campaign was plagued by allegations that his staffers had helped to fraudulently collect signatures to help get a third-party candidate onto the ballot.

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Separately, a source close to Taylor stressed to CNN that the former lawmaker is not without foreign policy experience. Following his time as a Navy SEAL, Taylor spent four years traveling in and out of Yemen as part of his work for a US oil company.

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One source familiar says the decision to change nominees was made by President Donald Trump himself.

Another source familiar with the situation said Taylor is someone whom “the White House obviously wants to look after.”

  WTKR

It's almost as though Trump is intentionally surrounding himself with compromised people willing to operate illegally.

If confirmed, Taylor will become ambassador during a tense period in the Gulf region. A stalemate is continuing between Qatar with neighboring countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Bahrain and Yemen. They severed ties with Qatar in 2017 over its alleged support for terrorist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

The State Department’s special envoy tasked with helping to resolve that dispute, retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, resigned on Tuesday. Two State Department officials told CNN that Zinni left because he felt he had reached a dead-end, believing there was no forward movement on resolving the rift.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.