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Brock Long's Gamble in Working for Trump

It is a slippery slope that service may bring you.

I have lied before, you bet. I always say that you should trust people, but I don't recommend trusting teenagers, "based on my personal experience as one, and as a father of two." However today, I would have a tough time telling a direct lie, one that I know was information that I know not to be true. It is one thing to hedge, it is another to provide information you know not to be true. My quote that I've come up with on that is, "Only you can take away your integrity." No one can make you lie.

I watched the secretary of Homeland Security "dance around the truth" at a recent congressional hearing. Basically she was trying not to make a false statement, while avoiding direct questions. This is the fix that "some" people who work in the current Trump administration are finding themselves in. They are trying to serve their country, within the context of the policy and leadership of the current administration. As one New Yorker article stated, "Working for Trump means that one’s credibility is likely to be damaged, so there is a kind of moral calculation that any Trump supporter must make: Does working for him serve some higher purpose that outweighs the price of reputational loss?" Sean Spicer is the most telling example of the above. He left his position of White House communications director unable to find another position in or out of government. He is currently writing a book. Before his service in the White House, he was a respected PR guy in Washington. 

To avoid lying, the normal strategy is to omit and avoid the topic. See this article about FEMA's Strategic Plan that was released recently. FEMA’s Latest Excuse For Why It’s Ignoring Climate Change: It Forgot. Remember, editors pick the title for the article. I'm sure Brock Long, who is a smart guy and trying to do the right thing, did not "forget."

One thing about lying that we all know. One lie begets another, and yet another lie. So when Brock Long appears in person to answer directly to oral questions — he will begin "the dance" that Secretary Kirstjen Michele Nielsen, has been learning. It is not the Texas Two-Step  But, maybe the two of them could enter into the pairs "two-step" competition before Congress?

All of the above is why I could not serve in the current administration. I'd fail the loyalty oath right out of the box. The only entity I'd swear to defend is the Constitution of the United States. I'll be loyal to my boss, until he does something illegal, unethical or immoral. 

 

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.