Patterico's Pontifications

9/12/2019

New York Times Smears Trump Administration with the Actions of a Prior Administration’s Appointee [UPDATED]

Filed under: General — JVW @ 8:49 am



[guest post by JVW]

[UPDATE: Commenter Appalled makes the following observation:

Looking around some, I can’t see any record of Ms. Tribble being appointed by the President (either Trump or Obama) and confirmed by Congress. If she had been, there would be something in the Congressional Record about it, and there is no Ahsha Tribble there. That makes her a Civil Service employee, and not, somehow, Trump’s fault or Trump’s appointee.

That’s a good addition, and Appalled did more legwork on this matter than I did, having only made a cursory check myself. It still seems that at some point she was chosen for the Obama White House, even if it wasn’t an appointment, so somebody in President Obama’s circle must have thought highly enough of her competence and character to bring her into the inner sanctum.]

—- Original Post —-

In a nice companion piece to Dana’s take-down of the Grey Lady’s insipid take on the September 11 anniversary yesterday, today the paper’s Twitter account released this Tweet, which I am going to screen-shot in anticipation of it eventually being deleted:

Screen Shot 2019-09-12 at 7.46.47 AM

From the accompanying article:

MIAMI — A former top administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency was arrested on Tuesday in a major federal corruption investigation that found that the official took bribes from the president of a company that secured $1.8 billion in federal contracts to repair Puerto Rico’s shredded electrical grid after Hurricane Maria.

Federal authorities arrested Ahsha Tribble, FEMA’s former deputy administrator for the region that includes Puerto Rico, and Donald Keith Ellison, the former president of Cobra Acquisitions with whom Ms. Tribble had a “close personal relationship,” Rosa Emilia Rodríguez Vélez, the United States attorney for Puerto Rico, announced. They were accused of conspiring to defraud the federal government, among other charges. [. . .]

And then the money paragraphs that are partly repeated in their Tweet:

President Trump has repeatedly cast Puerto Rico’s leaders as incompetent and corrupt. Tuesday’s arrests, however, did not involve any Puerto Ricans, but rather a longtime federal employee working on the island under the Trump administration.

Ms. Tribble, who holds a doctorate in meteorology, was assigned to Puerto Rico for a year, where she was the agency’s energy sector lead. She was also a Homeland Security adviser during the Obama administration. [emphasis added]

Wait, come again? Ms. Tribble served in the Obama Administration as well? One wonders how and when she might have gotten her start in government — ahem, ahem — service and what her rise through the ranks looked like. According to her LinkedIn profile, it appears that she began working as a Technical Officer for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in June 2003, just after finishing her doctoral degree. A couple of years later she rose to the position of Executive Officer, which she held until June 2008 when she became the Chief of the Climate Services Division in the final six months of the Bush Administration. She then became a Senior Policy Advisor at NOAA in June 2009, during the early months of the Obama Presidency, before moving into a White House role as the Director of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Resilience Policy. Since then she’s worked at the National Security Council, the Department of Energy, and, finally, the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

I don’t know at what point Ms. Tribble first received an actual White House appointment for her job, but it seems to make sense that it would have been at the same time that she actually started putting “White House” on her résumé, which was in January 2011. As much as the New York Times might want to believe otherwise, the Federal Government under President Trump contains lots of people who served in other administrations, even those who received White House appointments from Presidents not named Donald J. Trump. The Times in its zeal to be the chronicler of The Resistance is continually beclowning itself with these lame attempts at finger-pointing. This President — all Presidents for that matter — needs a robust media to hold himself to account for his decisions and deeds, but the Grey Lady is unfortunately a collection of embittered progressives, lacking credibility as objective chroniclers of the scene and instead continually outing themselves as unhinged partisans raging in the night. So much the worse for our democratic republic.

– JVW

56 Responses to “New York Times Smears Trump Administration with the Actions of a Prior Administration’s Appointee [UPDATED]”

  1. I didn’t do a particularly thorough job of copyediting this post for grammar or spelling errors before hitting the “Publish” button (I rarely do), so please read with forbearance.

    JVW (54fd0b) — 9/12/2019 @ 8:51 am

  2. And no, I was not tempted to title this post “The Trouble with Tribbles,” or even “Times Troubles Trump with Tribbles,” much as I enjoy alliteration.

    JVW (54fd0b) — 9/12/2019 @ 8:53 am

  3. I wondered about that, when they start speak resilience, I run as far as it can take me, that kind of malevolent neglect should be a death penalty offense, when you willing withhold critical resources,

    narciso (d1f714) — 9/12/2019 @ 9:19 am

  4. Another demonstration of NYT’s tribblelism.

    nk (dbc370) — 9/12/2019 @ 9:22 am

  5. As if Puerto Rico did not have enough tribble.

    nk (dbc370) — 9/12/2019 @ 9:22 am

  6. ‘nothing but tribble’ ok I’ll stop now,

    narciso (d1f714) — 9/12/2019 @ 9:23 am

  7. I doan wanna go back and look, but I remember that the $1.8 billion contract to one contractor raised some eyebrows when it happened. It was bruited about that the recipient was a Trump donor. Was he? Or just a donor of something else to Ahsha?

    nk (dbc370) — 9/12/2019 @ 9:27 am

  8. That’s your cue to say “Gesundheit!”, narciso.

    nk (dbc370) — 9/12/2019 @ 9:28 am

  9. yes, that was the only competent contractor, from my sources on the island, charming niece’s analog set the project back at least eight months,

    narciso (d1f714) — 9/12/2019 @ 9:32 am

  10. East Coast Bum Explosion at the NYT!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/12/2019 @ 9:37 am

  11. This is a career officer, not a political appointee. The NYT reporter/editor/publisher ought to know better. This is news that isn’t fit to print.

    Kevin M (19357e) — 9/12/2019 @ 9:40 am

  12. The NYT is wrong, of course. After all… it is the NYT.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/12/2019 @ 9:42 am

  13. she was posted in Oakland for about three years, before assigned to Puerto rico, it’s like the nexus with the Smollett snafu, and the Kavanaugh caper,

    narciso (d1f714) — 9/12/2019 @ 9:43 am

  14. Her FEMA bio is here: https://www.fema.gov/ahsha-tribble
    NYT print edition: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/us/puerto-rico-fema-arrests-corruption.html

    Kevin M (19357e) — 9/12/2019 @ 9:51 am

  15. nk #7:

    Slate comments on the eyebrow raising contract:

    After Hurricane Maria in September 2017, recovery efforts were marked by a different scandal involving the contractor Whitefish Energy. The company, which was based in former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s small hometown in Montana and which was only two years old at the time, reportedly charged exorbitant salaries for its linemen. The company, financed by a major Trump donor, had only two full-time employees at the time it landed its $300 million contract. Puerto Rico’s governor at the time, Ricardo Rosselló, canceled the contract in the face of the controversy.*

    This corruption seems much more garden variety, and not especially Trump-y.

    Appalled (d07ae6) — 9/12/2019 @ 9:53 am

  16. yet they got more done, on a quicker schedule, note the fellow who cancelled is an heap of big trouble himself,

    narciso (d1f714) — 9/12/2019 @ 9:55 am

  17. CNN tells the NYT: ‘hold our beers’:


    CNN: Right-wingers are America’s ‘deadliest terrorists’ if you exclude 9/11

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/cnn-right-wingers-are-americas-deadliest-terrorists-if-you-exclude-9-11
    _

    harkin (58d012) — 9/12/2019 @ 9:55 am

  18. it’s instructive how coral got the contract, subsequently and made a hash of things,

    narciso (d1f714) — 9/12/2019 @ 9:57 am

  19. The bribery charges may be complicated since she was the CEO’s girlfriend.

    Kevin M (19357e) — 9/12/2019 @ 9:59 am

  20. This is not as egregious as the NYT blaming 9/11 on jetliners. They did say that Ms. Tribble was “longtime federal employee”, and this corruption did happen under Trump’s watch.

    Paul Montagu (59179e) — 9/12/2019 @ 10:01 am

  21. This corruption seems much more garden variety, and not especially Trump-y.

    “A … cabinet post!”

    –Governor William J LePetomane

    Kevin M (19357e) — 9/12/2019 @ 10:04 am

  22. Thank you, Appalled.

    nk (dbc370) — 9/12/2019 @ 10:11 am

  23. All those dam’ right-wingers on Chicago’s South Side shooting 50 to 60 people of color every weekend. Somebody should take their guns away.

    nk (dbc370) — 9/12/2019 @ 10:15 am

  24. This is not as egregious as the NYT blaming 9/11 on jetliners. They did say that Ms. Tribble was “longtime federal employee”, and this corruption did happen under Trump’s watch.

    There’s some truth to that to be sure, but I don’t recall the NYT making a direct connection of Lois Lerner to her boss’s boss’s boss’s boss, President Obama, apart from the grudging acknowledgement that Ms. Lerner might have sought to help out his party with her office’s shenanigans. Yet in this instance, Ms. Tribble naturally becomes “[Trump’s] own FEMA official.”

    JVW (54fd0b) — 9/12/2019 @ 10:17 am

  25. Looking around some, I can’t see any record of Ms. Tribble being appointed by the President (either Trump or Obama) and confirmed by Congress. If she had been, there would be something in the Congressional Record about it, and there is no Ahsha Tribble there. That makes her a Civil Service employee, and not, somehow, Trump’s fault or Trump’s appointee. (Her FEMA bio makes note of her travels with Biden and Obama. Doesn’t say word one about Trump)

    Appalled (d07ae6) — 9/12/2019 @ 11:02 am

  26. I read a letter in the Wall Street Journal by someone who said he was a reader of the New York times for 40 years, and he stopped his subscription in 2010 when the New York Times ran a front page story saying House Speaker Joh Boehner took $300,000 from lobbyists. He suspected it was aht piece and soon discovered that other members of Congress took far more. He wrote to the Times’s public editor and received a reply saying that he agreed, and that the reporter should have put the issue in context. But if he had done so, said the letter, there would have been no story.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/narratives-and-the-decline-of-fair-coverage-11568056922

    Holman Jenkins’s “The Tragedy of the Times” (Business World, Aug. 24) concentrates on the present day, referring to President Donald Trump and New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet.

    I’ve read the New York Times for over 40 years. In days gone by, the Times kept its opinions on the editorial page. Ted Koppel pointed out that he tried to get a Times reporter on his TV show years ago. Abe Rosenthal, then the executive editor, replied that the reporter could appear but then couldn’t return to the Times. Rosenthal didn’t want his hard-news reporters answering provocative questions and offering commentary. That was the paper of record.

    In 2010 the Times carried a front-page story saying John Boehner took over $300,000 from lobbyists! I was no particular fan of Mr. Boehner’s, but the story struck me as a hit piece, and a few minutes of research showed other politicians in both parties took money from lobbyists and other sources which amounted to sums far in excess of that discussed in the article.

    25
    OPINION LETTERS
    Narratives and the Decline of Fair Coverage
    I read the New York Times for over 40 years. In days gone by, the Times kept its opinions on the editorial page.
    Sept. 9, 2019 3:22 pm ET

    Dean Baquet, executive editor of The New York Times in 2018. PHOTO: TED ANTHONY/ASSOCIATED PRESS
    Holman Jenkins’s “The Tragedy of the Times” (Business World, Aug. 24) concentrates on the present day, referring to President Donald Trump and New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet.

    I’ve read the New York Times for over 40 years. In days gone by, the Times kept its opinions on the editorial page. Ted Koppel pointed out that he tried to get a Times reporter on his TV show years ago. Abe Rosenthal, then the executive editor, replied that the reporter could appear but then couldn’t return to the Times. Rosenthal didn’t want his hard-news reporters answering provocative questions and offering commentary. That was the paper of record.

    In 2010 the Times carried a front-page story saying John Boehner took over $300,000 from lobbyists! I was no particular fan of Mr. Boehner’s, but the story struck me as a hit piece, and a few minutes of research showed other politicians in both parties took money from lobbyists and other sources which amounted to sums far in excess of that discussed in the article.

    I wrote to the Times’s public editor pointing out these facts and received a reply saying that he agreed, and that the reporter should have put the issue in context. He didn’t say that had the reporter put the issue in context, there would have been no story. Under Rosenthal, a story like that would not have made it into the publication. That was the last issue of the Times received here. The current management has been increasingly happy to act as a newsletter for the true believers. Those can be had online for free.

    W.C. Wilson

    Lancaster, Pa.

    Sammy Finkelman (8dcc71) — 9/12/2019 @ 11:21 am

  27. Sorry, I double quoted a lot of that letter

    This is the earlier Wall Street Journal article referenced in that letter:

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-tragedy-of-the-times-11566596465?mod=article_inline

    That has to do mainly with the famous changed headline about Trump’s little speech after he El Paso shooting (from a factual report, to one that highlighted a criticism of what Trump said, or didn’t say)

    Sammy Finkelman (8dcc71) — 9/12/2019 @ 11:29 am

  28. mr donald the president has a heart of gold just like his hair and skin so he could never be responsible for anything bad but everything good like ice cream is a generous gift from his beneficence so he deserves two scoops while the rest of us only get one

    Dave (1bb933) — 9/12/2019 @ 11:31 am

  29. Sweet Jaysus, now we get parodies of nk.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/12/2019 @ 11:39 am

  30. 25… she worked in the Obama admin, under that odd-looking Moniz fellow.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/12/2019 @ 11:44 am

  31. The point remains that Puerto Rico has been the victim of *federal* corruption, and that for the head of the federal government to point his finger at Puerto Rico’s corruption without acknowledging and taking care of the corruption in the federal government is hypocritical at best. Regardless of who appointed the corrupt federal official.

    aphrael (3f0569) — 9/12/2019 @ 11:47 am

  32. That’s more like a parody of “High-Fidelity” or “Homewood-Flossmoor” with a nod to “Disco”, once removed, Col.

    urbanleftbehind (0bbbe7) — 9/12/2019 @ 11:50 am

  33. I shouldn’t say odd, just an unusual flapper-girl hair-don’t…

    https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_480w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2013/03/04/National-Economy/Advance/Images/moniz.jpg?uuid=v8rmkITREeKYo7Pba5rFhg

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/12/2019 @ 11:52 am

  34. 32… two scoops short, nyahhhhh…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/12/2019 @ 11:57 am

  35. …probably used to be a salsero or musician, complete with the fluffy shirt sleeves

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb) — 9/12/2019 @ 11:59 am

  36. 35… nah, he was a physicist, so that’s to be expected.

    Hot Tip: should Trump win in November 2020, look for Pantifa violence to dramatically increase.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/12/2019 @ 12:10 pm

  37. Natch, I think a lot the of the Antifa will de-activate and try to get in good graces with the Man, feverishly erasing their previous electronic histories, hitting the tanning bed, re-drawing tattoos, etc.

    On that note, people should poll honestly so its nearly as forgone a conclusion as Nixon 72 and Reagan 84, that will help. Max blowout would be Bush I – Dukakis (and I think Bush spotted the farmier half of the Big 10 states to Snoopy).

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb) — 9/12/2019 @ 12:22 pm

  38. The point remains that Puerto Rico has been the victim of *federal* corruption, and that for the head of the federal government to point his finger at Puerto Rico’s corruption without acknowledging and taking care of the corruption in the federal government is hypocritical at best.

    Fair enough. Though, to also be fair, many of the federal employees enjoy very strong job protection. Look at how impossible it was to get rid of Ms. Lerner and her boss John Koskinen, no matter how much they lied about their actions. And it does appear to be the oft-maligned Trump Justice Department that has initiated the investigation of and brought charges against Ms. Tribble. Perhaps I am being partisan here, but I don’t recall the Obama Justice Department(s) being that vigilant against corruption.

    JVW (54fd0b) — 9/12/2019 @ 12:22 pm

  39. Is it just me or does the lack of capitalization combined with “Mr. Donald” give off vibes of The Artist Formerly Known as A Name Similar to “Joyous Appendages”?

    Russ from Winterset (a92b14) — 9/12/2019 @ 12:23 pm

  40. Looking around some, I can’t see any record of Ms. Tribble being appointed by the President (either Trump or Obama) and confirmed by Congress. If she had been, there would be something in the Congressional Record about it, and there is no Ahsha Tribble there. That makes her a Civil Service employee, and not, somehow, Trump’s fault or Trump’s appointee.

    Thanks Appalled. I poked around a bit, but you did the real legwork. I’ll update the post accordingly.

    JVW (54fd0b) — 9/12/2019 @ 12:24 pm

  41. UPDATE: Commenter Appalled makes the following observation:

    Looking around some, I can’t see any record of Ms. Tribble being appointed by the President (either Trump or Obama) and confirmed by Congress. If she had been, there would be something in the Congressional Record about it, and there is no Ahsha Tribble there. That makes her a Civil Service employee, and not, somehow, Trump’s fault or Trump’s appointee.

    That’s a good addition, and Appalled did more legwork on this matter than I did, having only made a cursory check myself. It still seems that at some point she was chosen for the Obama White House, even if it wasn’t an appointment, so somebody in President Obama’s circle must have thought highly enough of her competence and character to bring her into the inner sanctum.

    JVW (54fd0b) — 9/12/2019 @ 12:30 pm

  42. It doesn’t seem, it is. She was chosen to work for Ernest Moniz, Obama’s Sec of Energy, is what I read.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/12/2019 @ 12:59 pm

  43. “Before joining FEMA, Dr. Tribble served as the Senior Advisor to Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Moniz and was focused on identifying, strengthening, and integrating DOE capabilities for emergency preparedness and response, security, and resilience, as it related to DOE facilities and assets across the nation’s energy infrastructure.

    Prior to her tenure at DOE, Dr. Tribble served more than three years on the White House National Security Council (NSC) Staff, including interim service as Deputy Homeland Security Advisor; Senior Director for Response; and Director of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Resilience. She led or supported White House response coordination and operational policy for major disasters including Hurricanes Sandy and Irene; the Japanese earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster; major flooding on the Mississippi River and in Colorado; numerous tornados; and the deadly West Texas chemical plant explosion. She has traveled with President Obama and Vice President Biden to disaster areas to provide technical support on Federal response activities. Dr. Tribble also led the development Presidential policies for Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience, National Special Security Events, and Chemical Facilities Safety and Security.”

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/12/2019 @ 1:02 pm

  44. And OT, but DOJ denied McCabe’s appeal, so it appears they will proceed with criminal charges in his case.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/12/2019 @ 1:06 pm

  45. her deputy came from vegas, you know who’s bailiwick this is:

    https://dailycaller.com/2019/09/12/nancy-pelosi-claims-democrat-dan-mccready-won-north-carolina/

    looking for signs of intelligent life,

    narciso (d1f714) — 9/12/2019 @ 1:37 pm

  46. this guy,

    https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/11/21/navy-family-man-latest-casualty-of-vast-prostitution-and-bribery-scandal/

    narciso (d1f714) — 9/12/2019 @ 1:45 pm

  47. “And OT, but DOJ denied McCabe’s appeal, so it appears they will proceed with criminal charges in his case.”
    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/12/2019 @ 1:06 pm

    Among MSNBC circles, it’s called a resume enhancer.

    Munroe (732181) — 9/12/2019 @ 1:55 pm

  48. @47: No, make that Democrat circles in general.

    https://www.inquirer.com/news/andrew-mccabe-deputy-director-fbi-lancaster-county-democrats-pennslyvania-fundraiser-trump-20190904.html

    Munroe (732181) — 9/12/2019 @ 2:00 pm

  49. why are they always lying to us,

    https://twitter.com/sistertoldjah/status/1171889705513869312

    narciso (d1f714) — 9/12/2019 @ 2:43 pm

  50. satire is dead:

    https://www.npr.org/2019/09/12/760291624/virginia-lt-gov-justin-fairfax-files-400-million-lawsuit-against-cbs

    narciso (d1f714) — 9/12/2019 @ 3:17 pm

  51. Would she have been a political appointee during her time at the NSC and DOE?

    DRJ (15874d) — 9/12/2019 @ 4:27 pm

  52. Whether Tribble was an appointee or civil service for Obama or Trump, isn’t the heart of the problem that Trump’s Dept of the Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke — who has personal and familial connections to the firm, which is also located in his hometown — may have used his influence to give a company this contract? That is what makes this story about Trump, not Tribble.

    DRJ (15874d) — 9/12/2019 @ 9:00 pm

  53. Zinke’s tenure as Secretary was dramatic.

    DRJ (15874d) — 9/12/2019 @ 9:08 pm

  54. Unlike the not dramatic Republican politician Mike Pounce.

    DRJ (15874d) — 9/12/2019 @ 9:11 pm

  55. @39– I thought the same thing. And the references to the ice cream…

    Gramps (fe5cc9) — 9/15/2019 @ 10:04 am

  56. They did a good job, unlike their successor, which cost lives which rosello put on his ledger.

    Narciso (7658f4) — 9/15/2019 @ 10:56 am


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