Thursday, November 02, 2017

Trump Nominee Sam Clovis Withdraws From Consideration for Agriculture Department Post


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Sam Clovis helped supervise the foreign-policy team for Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign. Credit Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press

WASHINGTON — A former Trump campaign aide dropped out of the running on Thursday for a senior position at the Department of Agriculture three days after his name was tied to a former campaign foreign policy adviser who pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. over his contacts with Russia.
The campaign aide, Sam Clovis, told President Trump that he decided to withdraw from consideration to be the chief scientist at the Department of Agriculture, the White House said.
“The political climate inside Washington has made it impossible for me to receive balanced and fair consideration for this position,” Mr. Clovis wrote in a letter on Wednesday to Mr. Trump. “The relentless assaults on you and your team seem to be a blood sport that only increases in intensity each day.”
Mr. Clovis’s request to drop out of consideration is the latest blow to the Trump administration that for months has been dogged by the special counsel investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Mr. Clovis, an early campaign adviser, has met with the special counsel’s team.
On Monday, it was disclosed that Mr. Clovis discussed the Trump campaign’s priorities for relations with Russia with the foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty last month to lying to the F.B.I. about his communications with Russian officials during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to interviews and court papers.
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Mr. Clovis was among the Trump campaign officials who knew that Mr. Papadopoulos was developing contacts in Moscow and trying to to arrange a meeting for Mr. Trump in Russia.
“Great work,” Mr. Clovis wrote in a March 2016 email to Mr. Papadopoulos. Mr. Clovis, an economics professor, Tea Party activist and Air Force veteran, helped supervise the foreign policy team.
Mr. Clovis’s lawyer, Victoria Toensing, declined to comment on Thursday.
In July, Mr. Trump announced his intention to nominate Mr. Clovis to be the under secretary of agriculture for research, education and economics. The position requires Senate confirmation.

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In a letter, Mr. Clovis asked Mr. Trump to withdraw his name from consideration for a post in the Department of Agriculture.

Mr. Clovis’s credentials for the job were already under question by some who said he did not have the right experience to serve as the department’s chief scientist because he was not himself a scientist.
“Sam Clovis was almost a comically bad nominee, even for this administration,” Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, said in a statement on Thursday.
Mr. Leahy, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, which would have conducted Mr. Clovis’s nomination hearing, said he had planned to ask Mr. Clovis about Mr. Papadopoulos’s efforts to obtain stolen Democratic emails from the Russians.
Court documents unsealed on Monday said that Mr. Papadopoulos had been told of stolen emails, but he has not been accused of trying to obtain them.
“Mr. Clovis’s nomination was only withdrawn because that would certainly have been a topic during his upcoming testimony, under oath,” Mr. Leahy said.
On Tuesday, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, was asked whether the president still supported Mr. Clovis to serve as the chief scientist at the department, given the recent disclosures about his communications with Mr. Papadopoulos.
“I’m not aware that any change would be necessary at this time,” Ms. Sanders said.
Mr. Clovis, of Iowa, is the senior White House adviser to the Department of Agriculture. In his letter, he told Mr. Trump he would remain in this role.
“I worked hard during the campaign and take some pride in the accomplishment of having you elevated to the presidency,” Mr. Clovis wrote.
Mr. Clovis first supported Rick Perry to be the Republican nominee and ran Mr. Perry’s campaign in Iowa. He joined the Trump campaign in August 2015, even as he had once said Mr. Trump lacked “a moral center.”

NYT

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