Trump defense board packing plan reined in

The Trump administration last year abruptly removed a slate of members from the [Defense] business and policy boards and tapped people loyal to Trump to replace them.

[...]

[An] email that went out to advisory board members on Wednesday announced that effective immediately, "all appointments, reappointments and renewals" to the boards would be suspended “pending a thorough review by the new Administration.”

[...]

The move effectively prevents a number of Trump allies, including his 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and deputy campaign manager David Bossie, from actually serving on panels tasked with providing advice to the defense secretary, at least for the time being.

[...]

In addition, the Pentagon’s Senior Executive Management Office is halting the processing of appointments that were submitted previously, according to the email.

[...]

The freeze announced on Wednesday pertains only to appointees who have not yet been sworn in or have completed all the required paperwork, the people said. Several new board members, including Earl Matthews and Anthony Tata, were sworn in on Jan. 19 after pressure from the White House to push through as many appointees as possible before President Joe Biden’s inauguration. But others, including Lewandowski and Bossie, were still undergoing a lengthy financial disclosure and security clearance process that normally takes weeks or months, according to the people familiar.

[...]

After a push to move quickly on finalizing the new appointments, Matthews, Robert McMahon, Chris Shank and Bill Bruner were sworn in as members of the Defense Business Board on Jan. 19, the same day Tata, Scott O’Grady and Ambassador Charles Glazer were sworn in to the Defense Policy Board.

Tata, who was the Pentagon's acting policy chief, came under fire last year for tweets calling former President Barack Obama a "terrorist leader" and for calling Islam a violent religion. O'Grady, a former Air Force pilot who was shot down over Bosnia in 1995, has used his Twitter account to spread false claims that the election was stolen from Trump.

[...]

[T]he Biden team is looking into whether it can replace dozens of Trump’s last-minute appointments to boards and commissions across the U.S. government.

  Politico

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

Fallout

Earl Matthews, a senior National Security Council official who attended several of the meetings now at the center of the congressional impeachment inquiry, will depart from his job on Friday, according to two people familiar with his plans.

During his time on the NSC, Matthews, the senior director for defense policy and strategy and one of the highest ranking African-American members of the Trump White House, worked closely with former national security advisor John Bolton. He was part of a small group that sat in on meetings with Ukrainian officials that House Democrats are now scrutinizing as they investigate whether President Donald Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate a political rival.

[...]

During the Poland trip, Matthews was also in a meeting between Zelensky and Vice President Mike Pence, who was filling in for Trump after the president called off his trip to monitor potential hurricane damages in the U.S.

Still, Matthews has not been pulled into the Democrats’ impeachment probe, according to an administration official.

  Politico

Yet.

During a 2017 Black History Month Listening Session at the White House with President Trump, Matthews introduced himself as “a veteran and a longtime supporter” of the president.