3A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2018
Trump replaces Tillerson with Pompeo in dramatic shake-up
Fired in a tweet
By JOSH LEDERMAN
and MATTHEW LEE
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Pres-
ident Donald Trump uncere-
moniously dumped Secretary
of State Rex Tillerson by tweet
today and picked CIA Direc-
tor Mike Pompeo to take his
place, abruptly ending Tiller-
son’s turbulent tenure as Amer-
ica’s top diplomat and escalat-
ing the administration’s chaotic
second-year shake-up.
Tillerson was ousted barely
four hours after he returned
from an Africa mission and
with no face-to-face conversa-
tion with the president, the lat-
est casualty of an unruly White
House that has seen multiple
top officials depart in recent
weeks. Citing the Iran nuclear
deal and other issues, Trump
said he and Tillerson were “not
really thinking the same.”
“We disagreed on things,”
Trump told reporters at the
White House — a diplomatic
take on a fractious relationship
that included reports that Til-
lerson had privately called the
president a “moron.”
In an illustration of the gulf
that has long separated Tiller-
son and Trump, aides to both
couldn’t even on agree on the
circumstances of his firing.
Undersecretary of State
Steve Goldstein and other
State Department officials said
that Tillerson hadn’t learned
he was dismissed until he saw
Trump’s early-morning tweet,
and hadn’t discussed it directly
with the president. Goldstein
said the former Exxon Mobil
CEO was “unaware of the rea-
son” he was fired and “had had
every intention of staying,”
feeling he was making prog-
ress on national security.
Hours later, Goldstein was
fired, too.
Multiple White House offi-
cials said that Tillerson had
been informed of the decision
Friday, while he was in Ethi-
opia. One official said chief
of staff John Kelly had called
Tillerson on Friday and again
on Saturday to warn him that
Trump was about to take
imminent action if he did not
step aside, and that a replace-
ment had already been identi-
fied. When Tillerson didn’t act,
Trump fired him, that official
said.
All of the officials
demanded anonymity because
they weren’t authorized to
speak publicly.
Trump’s change puts
Pompeo, an ardent foe of the
Iran nuclear deal, in charge of
U.S. diplomacy as the president
decides whether to withdraw
the U.S. from the agreement.
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before board-
ing Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House today.
Trump faces another dead-
line in May to decide whether
to remain in the Obama-era
nuclear agreement that he cam-
paigned aggressively against.
Tillerson has pushed Trump
to remain in the agreement and
had been pursuing a delicate
strategy with European allies
and others to try to improve
or augment it to Trump’s lik-
ing. The president mentioned
differences over how to han-
dle the Iran agreement, “so we
were not really thinking the
same.”
Though Trump and other
officials said he’d been con-
sidering replacing Tillerson
for some time, the president
said he made the decision only
recently and “by myself.” Til-
lerson will be “much happier
now,” he said.
The reshuffle also comes
amid a dramatic diplomatic
opening with North Korea,
with Trump set to hold a his-
toric meeting with leader Kim
Jong Un in May. Pressur-
ing North Korea with sanc-
tions and other isolation mea-
sures had been a top Tillerson
priority, and he had been one
of the administration’s more
vocal advocates for holding
talks in some form with the
North. When Trump ultimately
accepted Kim’s invitation for a
meeting, Tillerson was in Ethi-
opia, though he said he spoke
with Trump about it shortly
before it was announced.
Tillerson’s departure adds
to a period of intense turnover
within Trump’s administration
that has alarmed those both in
and out of the White House.
Top economic adviser Gary
Cohn announced his resigna-
tion last week, not long after
communications director Hope
Hicks and staff secretary Rob
Porter both departed near the
start of Trump’s second year in
office.
The president said he was
nominating the CIA’s deputy
director, Gina Haspel, to take
over for Pompeo at the intel-
ligence agency. If confirmed,
Haspel would be the CIA’s first
female director
Pompeo, a former Republi-
can congressman from Kansas,
has already been confirmed by
the Senate for his current role
at the CIA, making it extremely
likely that he will be confirmed
for the State Department role.
Trump tweeted, “He will do a
fantastic job!”
Pompeo said he was
“deeply grateful” to be nomi-
nated and looked “forward to
guiding the world’s finest dip-
lomatic corps” if confirmed.
He also praised Trump.
“His leadership has made
America safer, and I look for-
ward to representing him and
the American people to the rest
of the world to further Ameri-
ca’s prosperity,” Pompeo said.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, an
Oregon Democrat who serves
on the Senate Intelligence
Committee, said in a state-
ment that he would oppose
the nominations of Pompeo
and Haspel. “Before and after
his confirmation as CIA direc-
tor, Mike Pompeo has demon-
strated a casual relationship to
truth and principle,” the sena-
tor said. “He has downplayed
Russia’s attack on our democ-
racy, at times contradicting the
intelligence community he is
supposed to lead. He has also
made inconsistent and deeply
concerning statements about
torture and mass spying on
Americans.
“Ms. Haspel’s background
makes her unsuitable to serve
as CIA director. Her nomina-
tion must include total trans-
parency about this back-
ground, which I called for
more than a year ago when she
was appointed deputy director.
If Ms. Haspel seeks to serve at
the highest levels of U.S. intel-
ligence, the government can
no longer cover up disturbing
facts from her past.”
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, an
Oregon Democrat, said in a
post on Twitter: “Nothing in
Pompeo’s record indicates he
believes in diplomacy as an
effective tool. He’s acted as
a hardline partisan, defended
torture & warrantless surveil-
lance, and tried to blow up the
deal that has kept Iran from
developing nuclear weap-
ons. So this news is deeply
concerning.”
Waiver trials: Marquis says prosecutors will no longer do waiver trials
Continued from Page 1A
A hook
Clatsop County used the
waivers for years as a hook
to persuade misdemeanor
defendants to honor their
court dates.
The 60-bed jail in Astoria
is chronically overcrowded,
with as many as 70 percent of
inmates awaiting trial. People
accused of misdemeanors are
often released when the jail
approaches capacity.
The waivers were a reflec-
tion of jail overcrowding and
the high percentage of defen-
dants who live outside the
county. The Daily Astorian
found that roughly 40 percent
of drunken-driving cases, for
example, involve visitors to
the coast.
Up until about a year ago,
the court would enforce waiv-
ers signed by defendants —
like Medina, the Washing-
ton state woman — who were
in custody after an arrest but
not yet arraigned on charges,
a process some found trou-
bling. Someone arrested after
a night of drinking or a fight
with a loved one and eager to
get out of jail may not realize
the risks of waiving their right
to appear at trial.
Waivers signed by defen-
dants after arraignment in
court, by contrast, came with
explicit warnings from judges
about the possible conse-
quences. The waiver form
— in bold, capital letters —
stated: “I authorize the court
to go ahead without me and to
have the trial on the original
date or on any other date.”
Defendants were advised
that if they signed the waiver
and did not show up for trial,
they gave up the right to be
represented by an attorney, to
challenge evidence, to ques-
tion witnesses and to mount a
defense.
Even
though
judges
explained the gravity, Win-
termute doubts defendants —
some who appear at arraign-
ment from a video link from
jail — fully understood. The
choice was especially cloudy
for people with drug or alco-
hol problems, mental health
issues, or precarious job or
housing situations.
“I wonder how much it
gets through to some people
when they’re sitting there, on
a camera, and they just want
to get the hell out of jail,” he
said.
For prosecutors, the waiv-
ers provided some assur-
ance that misdemeanor cases
would inch toward conclusion
even if defendants repeatedly
missed court dates.
“The question is, do they
knowingly, voluntarily and
freely weigh in their minds
— with legal representation,
although it’s not absolutely
necessary — that getting out
of jail without paying a dime
is worth it?” Marquis said.
Defendants who waived
their right to appear at trial
were almost always convicted
if their cases reached the
courtroom in their absence,
since prosecutors had the
luxury of arguing against an
empty chair.
The Circuit Court used the
waivers to help close mis-
demeanor cases rather than
keeping them open indefi-
nitely. On reflection, Judge
Brownhill said it looks as if
the waivers did not achieve
that goal. Of the 11 waiver tri-
als last year, the judge said,
seven are still on warrant
status.
Judges do not sentence
defendants convicted in
absentia, so, until they are
arrested again or turn them-
selves in, the convictions
stay in the background, like a
shadow.
Five years after Medina,
the Washington state woman,
was found guilty after she
didn’t show up for her drunk-
en-driving trial, she still has
not been sentenced.
to appear for trial.
“This idea of trial in
absentia is just so un-Amer-
ican,” she said. “I think peo-
ple would be hard-pressed
to believe that we try people
without them being there and
without their lawyers being
there.”
House Bill 4149, which
Williamson sponsored, would
ban the waivers. The bill
would also bar prosecutors
from requiring defendants to
agree that a law is unconstitu-
tional as a condition of a plea
offer.
The state House voted 56-0
in favor of the bill in Febru-
ary. The Senate voted 27-1
earlier this month, with state
Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scap-
poose, the only “no” vote.
Johnson spoke with Mar-
quis about the potential
downside for Clatsop County.
“This bill, the way that it’s
written, would give criminal
defendants — including those
accused of domestic violence
— an easy way to avoid con-
sequences,” the senator said.
‘Wrong thing to do’
Marquis, in anticipation
of Gov. Kate Brown allow-
ing HB 4149 to become law,
informed judges last week
that prosecutors will no lon-
ger do waiver trials.
“My lawyers will be ask-
ing for warrants if a defendant
fails to appear and we will
urge the jail to seriously con-
sider whether to release peo-
ple who have shown over and
over again their refusal to fol-
low court orders to appear,”
the district attorney wrote in
an email.
Wintermute said defen-
dants often have to choose
between a bad outcome and a
worse one, and should not be
coerced into giving up import-
ant rights so the courts might
function more efficiently.
“It’s the wrong thing to do,
is what it comes down to,” the
defense attorney said.
‘Outrageous’
The Oregon Court of
Appeals ruled in 2006 that
Clatsop County’s use of the
waivers was legal. The opin-
ion — in State of Oregon v.
Skillstad, written by Ellen
Rosenblum, now the state’s
attorney general — hinged on
whether the waiver in a crim-
inal mischief trial was valid
and voluntary.
The state Legislature took
up the issue this year as part
of a wider discussion on plea
bargains.
State House Majority
Leader Jennifer Williamson,
D-Portland, said she heard
about the waivers in Clatsop
County after one of the mis-
demeanor convictions bub-
bled up on appeal.
Williamson, an attorney,
called the practice “outra-
geous,” since courts can issue
warrants when defendants fail
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