A show of hands

Eleven of President Trump’s most senior advisers met in the White House Situation Room in early May 2018 and were asked to vote on family separations, two officials in attendance told NBC News. The meeting was led by senior advisor Stephen Miller, who reportedly expressed anger toward then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

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The meeting came about a month after the Trump administration instituted the “zero tolerance” policy.

During the meeting, Nielsen reportedly said there weren't enough resources to separate parents, prosecute them and reunite them with their children quickly.

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Miller alleged Nielsen was stalling before he called for the show-of-hands vote. Most voted in favor of family separations, though Nielsen did not, officials told NBC News.

No adviser argued in the meeting that the action would be immoral, as those claims “fell on deaf ears” in the White House, one official said.

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An invitation list for the meeting with the vote obtained by NBC News included then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Nielsen, Miller, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, ex-Under Secretary of Defense John Rood, then-White House chief of staff John Kelly, White House deputy chief of staff Chris Liddell, then-White House counsel Don McGahn and Marc Short, who at the time was White House director of legislative affairs.

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Days after the meeting, Nielsen signed a memo instructing Homeland Security Department employees to prosecute all immigrants who crossed the border illegally, including parents with children.

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A federal judge ordered the families to be reunited, but there was no plan to track the children or reunite the families, the two former officials said. As a result, it took months to reunite some families, and some parents were deported without their children.

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White House spokesman Judd Deere said told The Hill in a statement that the show-of-hands vote “is absolutely not true and did not happen.”

Health and Human Services Department spokesman Michael Caputo told NBC News, “This never happened.”

  The Hill

I have no doubt it did happen. Trump is all about taking names.

Another "resignation"

Pentagon policy chief, John Rood.

The senior Pentagon official had faced pressure to resign from key figures who lost confidence in his ability to carry out the administration’s agenda, according to multiple administration officials who requested anonymity to speak about Rood’s departure.

  Stars & Stripes

Did he have too much integrity?

He was the official who certified in May to Congress that Ukraine was eligible to receive $250 million in security assistance. That aid was blocked temporarily by the White House, a decision at the center of the impeachment of President Donald Trump.

Wow. That is damned petty. Maybe if Trump had told him not to certify it and he did it anyway. Is that what happened? Or did he just make an honest determination and certification when asked by Congress to do so?

Trump officials considered Rood a bureaucrat who would delay execution of the president’s policies. Trump likes his directives to be implemented rapidly and national security aides believed Rood never fully agreed with the president’s positions, according to two people familiar with the situation.

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In July, Rood’s deputy, David Trachtenberg, resigned after less than two years. The departure of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Randall Schriver was announced in December. He had been in the role since January 2018.

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