The Trump administration has decided to keep at least two Obama-era political appointees at the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) who have expressed anti-Trump sentiments.
Brandon Fureigh, who serves as a senior adviser for strategic engagement at the VA, and Kayla Williams, director of the VA Center for Women Veterans, have both successfully transitioned from the Obama administration to the Trump administration, despite anti-Trump comments and actions.
Fureigh has protected his Twitter account, but according to The Washington Examiner, he tweeted out in December, 2016: “I despise what this man is doing to our country” in response to another tweet that mentioned Trump’s “fringe Islamophobic views.”
Fureigh also cheered for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign by sardonically taking a generic tweet of Marco Rubio’s and implying it constituted an endorsement for Clinton.
Fureigh also implicitly hit back at Trump in a piece he wrote for The National Memo Jan. 21, 2016.
“Toughness is not about threatening to ‘carpet bomb’ someone or to ‘bomb the [expletive] out of them.’ Blind tough talk accomplishes nothing and risks much,” Fureigh wrote, responding to Trump’s remarks at a campaign event Nov. 12, 2015, in which he said, “I would bomb the shit out of [ISIS].”
“Rather than tough talk, true leaders are calm and steadfast in the face of multiple threats,” Fureigh added. “True leaders stick to their values and stick by their allies. And a true leader knows that we must use every tool in our arsenal to stare down those threats and take advantages of the opportunities this century offers us.”
Fureigh has a long history of Democratic political activism and advocacy. After he first made the decision to enter politics, he began as a community organizer for Organization for America, a project of the Democratic National Committee to bolster grass roots support for then-President Barack Obama’s legislative proposals.
He also worked as a field organizer for Tommy Sowers, a Democratic candidate who attempted to unseat incumbent Democratic Rep. Jo Ann Emerson in 2010.
More recently, he worked at the Truman National Security Project. The goal of the organization is to train “progressives to deepen their understanding of national security issues and master the communications skills needed to make their case in the public square.”
The advisory board of the Truman National Security Project is full of anti-Trump luminaries like former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris.
The other Obama appointee, Kayla Williams, said she planned to attend the anti-Trump Women’s March in Washington, D.C., in January and said she would bring her children.
“I plan to attend as a private citizen with my young children as part of my efforts to show them that people should stand together for what they believe in,” Williams told Stars and Stripes.
Williams has also retweeted messages that oppose Trump’s immigration suspension.
She also retweeted a message Nov. 9 that urged women to get their IUDs as soon as possible “before Trump-Pence reverse the requirement for full contraceptive coverage.”
Although White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer has stated that “we should be making sure that people who are coming in as appointees of the President support the President’s agenda,” both Fureigh and Williams seem to prove an exception to the rule.
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