Donald Trump’s cabinet choices seem to have been determined mostly by selecting from a list of his campaign donors and sorting them by net worth. Because when you’re bringing America back to average people, there’s no better way than piling up Wall Street billionaires. But now … voilà, Viola is out.
President Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of the Army, Vinnie Viola, is withdrawing, citing trouble disengaging with his business ties.
"Mr. Viola has informed President Trump that he will be unable to accept his nomination to serve as secretary of the Army as the challenges of separating Mr. Viola from the organizations that he has built over the last thirty-five years have proven insurmountable," a statement from Viola's team on Friday evening said.
Viola hasn’t attracted as much attention as other Trump appointees, because unlike most Trump appointees he actually has some experience in the area he was selected to head — he’s a West Point grad. But less than five years of active duty over three decades ago didn’t exactly make Viola the best candidate to head the Army, which was a sore point with another Trump selection.
Mattis was unhappy with Trump's choice of Viola, with several sources saying before last month's inauguration that Trump made the selection without consulting Mattis. One source said Mattis was so angry, he threatened to quit if Trump made more Pentagon appointments without consulting him.
Though Viola is a billionaire, he’s one of the few Trump selections who didn’t roll into the world on a golden baby blanket. His parents were immigrants, and he raised $10,000 to put himself on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
But Viola’s real claim to fame is that he was one of the first to realize that computerized, high-frequency trading could manipulate the market and generate billions through driving commodity futures up and down. His wealth came primarily by manipulating the world oil market, weaponize his technological trading into a system that blitzed ordinary traders and bilked consumers.
Somehow, for Trump, that translates into the best guy to run the Army.