Trump just moved to reward his personal
pilot with a huge government position
The ConMan-In-Chief is
at it again.
After convincing a
minority of voters to elect him president through the gaming of the
obsolete electoral college system with a promise to drain the swamp of
corrupt politics in Washington DC, President Trump is continuing to try to
fill high-level government positions with his nepotistic appointments of family
and friends.
It wasn’t enough for
Trump to place Wall Street billionaires in charge of the economy just
eight short years after they nearly threw the entire world into a global
depression or to place veterans of the very industries that government agencies
are meant to oversee in charge of those regulatory hen houses.
Now, he’s trying to
appoint his personal pilot, the man who flies the President’s own gold-plated
Boeing 757 jet, Trump Force One, in charge of the Federal Aviation
Administration, according to a report on Axios.
Trump has reportedly told a large number of administration officials and business associates that he’d like to see John Dunkin, the man who has piloted him from golf course to deplorable rally to Mar-a-Lago and back, as head of the FAA, the agency that supervises all civil aviation activity in the country.
Axios relates the comments of one industry
insider who compared the situation to the Seinfeld episode
where Cosmo Kramer enlists his golf caddy as a jury consultant.
Administration
officials, however, insist that Dunkin is qualified for the post. One source in
the White House said:
“He’s on the list because he’s the president’s pilot, but if he gets the job it won’t be because he’s the president’s pilot.”
Another official told Axios that
Dunkin’s credentials are appropriate for an applicant for the position.
“John Dunkin isn’t just a pilot. He’s managed airline and corporate flight departments, certified airlines from start-up under FAA regulations, and oversaw the Trump presidential campaign’s air fleet, which included managing all aviation transportation for travel to 203 cities in 43 states over the course of 21 months.”
While other
candidates, including current acting FAA Administrator Dan Elwell, are
being considered for the post as well, having the endorsement of the President
cannot help but improve Dunkin’s odds at nabbing the gig.
The idea of his
appointment to head the FAA may have originated while Dunkin was stuck on the
tarmac with the President in Trump Force One and experiencing delays. Dunkin
reportedly would tell Trump that none of the delays would be happening if a
pilot ran the FAA.
Unfortunately for the
foes of crony governance and fetid swamps, we may very soon test the veracity
of that statement.