There’s a new twist to Trump’s uninvited visit to St. John’s Lafayette Square to hold aloft a Bible.
The photo-op at the Episcopal church was designed and executed by a member of the Secret Service on temporary leave as a political appointee in the White House. It is unprecedented for the Secret Service to approve such an appointment.
The Secret Service also took the unprecedented step of allowing the former detail leader to temporarily leave his job to become a White House political adviser. Anthony Ornato was hired as White House deputy chief of staff earlier this year. In that role, he helped coordinate a controversial June photo opportunity in which Trump strode defiantly across Lafayette Square to pose with a Bible after the park was forcibly cleared of peaceful protesters.
Ornato also helped coordinate numerous rallies across the country during the pandemic, per Trump’s wishes. The mass gatherings were blamed for increasing the spread of the coronavirus in some of the communities where they took place and left many in the ranks of the Secret Service infected or exposed.
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Ornato will be leaving the White House and is slated to return to the Secret Service to become the assistant director overseeing the agency’s Rowley Training Center, according to the people familiar with the changes, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe personnel decisions. The posting is prestigious but outside of the president’s immediate protection team.
Meanwhile, some well-respected supervisory agents who worked on the protective detail for Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, during the Obama administration are set to join the presidential protection team come Jan. 20.
There was a coronavirus outbreak at Rowley Training Center in August.
Trump’s announcement of Ornato’s appointment as a deputy chief of staff, December 7, 2019:
The United States Secret Service Deputy Assistant Director, Anthony Ornato, will become my new Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations. I have worked with Tony for 3 years – he will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Dan Walsh for his great service, and congratulations to Tony!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 7, 2019
All Content © 2017 Episcopal Café
Two things:
One… Anthony Ornato, because of his “unprecedented” service should be removed from service in the FBI, and even in government. He likely is as dangerous as the other Trumpeteers. Our government severely and urgently needs to be cleansed and purged.
Second… I find it humourously ironic that tRump is photographed outside of an Episcopal church, primarily because he has demonstrated time and again that he is not a Christian but only serves the god he sees each morning in the mirror, and secondarily the Episcopal church is one of the few in which, if worshiping, he would be taking orders from a book.
This stupidity hopefully will be over in three more weeks when he moves from the White House to a gray cell.
Additionally, the Episcopal Cafe should not be giving him publicity. Nothing he does is newsworthy to the Episcopal church.
Yeah. Another breakdown in integrity and degrading of our institutions. The appetite to use force to visit one of our churches is still the salient point. He could have just come on a Sunday, we’ve been praying for him on the Prayers of the People this whole time…