State Department officials are denying that a plan has been engineered at the White House to push Secretary Rex Tillerson out, as reported earlier Thursday by numerous media outlets, starting with The New York Times.
The newspaper said CIA Director Mike Pompeo would be Tillerson’s replacement at State, and Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton would replace Pompeo at the agency. Both men are aggressive war hawks. The news—which has been rumored for the past seven weeks in articles like this and this—sparked numerous stories and commentaries in traditional media and blogs, including Daily Kos.
But the State Department denies it. The White House press secretary denies it. Jim Mattis denies it (sort of). Here are Julian Borger and David Smith at The Guardian:
According to the New York Times, the first to report an impending departure, the plan was being put together by the White House chief of staff, John Kelly.
But state department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said that Kelly had called after the news reports broke and insisted they were false. “What I can tell you is that chief of staff Kelly called our department this morning and said that the rumours are not true, that those reports are not true. That is what I’ve been told,’ Nauert said. [...]
Tillerson met defence secretary James Mattis, his closest ally in the administration, early on Thursday morning, the state department said. Later in the day, Mattis was asked what he makes of reports of Tillerson leaving.
Mattis replies: “I make nothing of it, there’s nothing to it.”
Josh Marshall at TPM writes:
CNN is now reporting that the CIA/State shake-up story that roiled the news this morning was in fact an effort to send a message to and shame Rex Tillerson. That is hardly surprising given President Trump’s way of doing business for decades. But there’s more to it than that.
This new report at least suggests that the initial news reports this morning were false.
Now, this is mushy. It may be that the President is in fact planning this shake up, that it is happening and that he also leaked news of the plan to shame Tillerson. But that’s moPoliticore plausible in a notional sense than an actual one. This morning’s report was that it’s happening. It could happen today or it could happen by the end of the year. But it’s happening. And you’re finding out about something that is happening.
Now it seems that that’s not quite the case. If it’s really happening there isn’t a lot of need to send Tillerson a message or shame him. Just do it. What it seems like is that a lot of the prestige publications got hoodwinked into delivering a message which they thought was a news story.
Frankly, I don’t see it. The CNN report states:
Reports that the White House has a tentative plan to replace Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that emerged Thursday were an effort to express President Donald Trump's deep displeasure and publicly shame his secretary of state, a source with direct knowledge of the White House's thinking said Thursday.
The hope from the White House, the source said, is to push out the plan to replace Tillerson and then "wait for him to punch out."
The news that the White House is seriously considering replacing Tillerson with CIA Director Mike Pompeo comes as Trump remains deeply frustrated with his secretary of state, another source familiar with the President's thinking said. And the plan is not just being considered at the staff level, but by the President himself, the source said. [...]
That suggests not that the report of a plan to oust Tillerson was false, but rather that leaking the story was a key element of that plan—getting him out by jerking his chain so hard that he would bail on his own without anyone having to fire him.
But perhaps Marshall is correct. Hoodwinked by disinformation is something that has happened to many journalists, including really smart ones, since there have been journalists. If so, however, it would mean the Times reporters just got burned by some sources they depended on to give them truthful information.
The fact is that the Tillerson-Pompeo-Cotton story has been gathering ink and pixels at various sources since early October. See Axios, Vanity Fair, Politico.
Presumably, we’ll find out soon enough whether this has all been an elaborate prank, a poke in the eye to Tillerson for reportedly calling Pr*sident Trump a “moron.” Or perhaps it’s just what Times reporters Maggie Haberman, Peter Baker, and Gardiner Harris said it is. Would it really surprise anyone for Trump to fire Tillerson five minutes after press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has said he has confidence in the man?