​Sue Gordon's Resignation Letter To Trump Is Best 'F*ck You' Since ... Wait, Who's Sue Gordon Again?

Another highly qualified public servant bites the dust.

As we've been writing about Donald Trump's pathetic and terrifying search for a new Director of National Intelligence, now that Dan Coats is being quit-fired for being too decent and qualified, we've introduced y'all to a new character named Sue Gordon. By law, in the absence of a confirmed DNI, the principal deputy director of national intelligence is to become the acting DNI, and that's career CIA official Sue Gordon. She's extremely well-liked in the intel community, and anyway let's cut the shit, SUE GORDON, YOU'RE FIRED.

....coincides with the retirement of Dan Coats. A new Acting Director of National Intelligence will be named shortly.

— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump) 1565302782.0 

Gordon has "announced" that she totally wants to quit the same day as Dan Coats, which conveniently is the only legal way for Trump to get an acting DNI to his liking, instead of some dumb terrible person who does her job well and has the respect of her peers. You bet, this was for sure her very own idea!

Except nah.

As we mentioned in the headline, her resignation letter is a thing of beauty, but we're not talking about the official resignation letter itself, but the handwritten note Gordon appended to it. Therein lies the fuck you:

"Mr. President – I offer this letter as an act of respect & patriotism, not preference. You should have your team. Godspeed, Sue."

FUCK. Those 22 words speak VOLUMES. Translation: "Hey President Dickbag, I really am not in the mood to have my 30-year career ended because of the whims of a petulant shitmouthed authoritarian Putin puppet, but sure whatever, do what you want. See you in hell, LOVE, SUE."

So now the acting director will be some guy:

I am pleased to inform you that the Honorable Joseph Maguire, current Director of the National Counterterrorism Cen… https: //t.co/9wemgG0spy

— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump) 1565305955.0 

Will Trump get right on nominating a permanent person for the job, like he did when he tried to put laughingstock dumbstupid Rep. John Ratcliffe in the position, or will he thumbfuck his ass about it until the very last minute, because he loves "acting" directors he perceives as more accountable to him than they are to the American people? Dunno. Guess it depends on how batshit Joseph Maguire is. The Washington Post   notes that Maguire has a long military record, but not much of an intelligence record, but also says "current and former intelligence officials were relieved" when they heard Trump picked him, so maybe it'll be OK, for whatever value of "OK" we're using in the Trump era.

Over at the Maddow Blog, Steve Benen flags a line in a Bloomberg report suggesting that maybe Trump would like to pick former Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra for the permanent job, according to people in the know. Would that be insane? Benen seems to think it would be insane, because Hoekstra, who used to be the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, "used to leak sensitive information like a sieve during his time on Capitol Hill." So that sounds awesome!

The Senate Intelligence Committee is BIPARTISAN-LY not pleased by Sue Gordon's departure. Here's what the committee's Democratic Vice Chair Mark Warner had to say:  

"This is a real loss to our intelligence community. In more than 30 years of service to our nation, Sue Gordon has demonstrated herself to be a patriot and a consummate professional, eventually becoming the highest-ranking woman ever to serve in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and someone who garnered tremendous respect from both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill. Her retirement is a great loss not only to the intelligence community, but to the country.

"President Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that he is seemingly incapable of hearing facts that contradict his own views. The mission of the intelligence community is to speak truth to power; yet in pushing out two dedicated public servants in as many weeks, once again the President has shown that he has no problem prioritizing his political ego even if it comes at the expense of our national security."

That's not subtle. The statement from committee chair Richard Burr, a Republican, wasn't quite as hateful as Warner's, but he's clearly also dismayed to see Sue Gordon go, as is House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff.

All in all, yet another example of Donald Trump firing the best and the brightest and replacing it with #BeBest. And if Maguire tries to commit some cardinal sin against Trump like "protecting American elections from Russian attacks" or something terrible like that, Trump can just find a new acting director, like maybe Rod Blagojevich or one of Devin Nunes's cows, or hey, Jared and Mick Mulvaney only have like 26 jobs apiece, maybe one of them can do it.

Ooh, idea! Could Russia and the United States ... share a DNI ? Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin would probably like that very much! After all, when Putin suggested to Trump in 2017 that maybe they could do an election security task force together , Trump thought that was a very legal and very cool idea!

Anyway, we're fucked.

[ NBC News / MaddowBlog ]

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