By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, January 19 – Trump spokesman Sean Spicer, in a press conference the day before the inauguration, chided Senator Chuck Schumer for not including Nikki Haley, nominee to be US Ambassador to the UN, in the list to be confirmed before "Day One."
Meanwhile, Inner City Press' sources tell it of plans to request the departure of more officials at the US Mission than would spring from the "Plum Book" of political appointees.
Inner City Press sources tell it that Susan Rice, Samanatha Power's predecessor, brought on some 17 political appointees, see also this:
"The Permanent Representative drew on her previous experience at both the Department as Assistant Secretary and the NSC as senior director to develop special staff structures in New York and Washington to support her Cabinet role. The special staff in New York consists of a chief and a deputy chief of staff, three policy advisers, a special assistant, and two schedulers, all but one of whom are political appointees, plus an executive secretary and staff assistant, both career Foreign Service. USUN/W has a senior Foreign Service deputy to the Permanent Representative and seven political appointee staff: a deputy chief of staff/counselor; four policy advisers, one of whom is also the speechwriter; a special assistant; and an office manager."
Before Haley spoke on January 18 in Washington, Senator Bob Corker said he sometimes wondered if just-left Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had a pulse.
In fact, Ban was quite active in helping his own relatives at the UN, promoting his son in law to the top UN job in Kenya, his brother mining in Myanmar with a "UN delegation," indicted nephew using Ban's name to sell real estate.
When Haley answered Senator Markey (D-MA) on Haiti cholera, she said "We're going to have to make this right with Haiti" -- and clean up UN Peacekeeping. That would involve firing Herve Ladsous, see below.
Inner City Press at the January 18 UN noon briefing asked about Haley saying countries whose peacekeepers abuse should not keep getting paid, asking specifically about Burundi whose troops are suspected by the UN of 25 rapes in the Central African Republic, while Ladsous decides to keep paying the Nkurunziza government for 800 more of them.
Earlier, Haley said the UN has a "checkered history." That's being diplomatic. Consider a head of Peacekeeping who has linked rapes to R&R, video here.
Consider a head of the UN "Department of Public Information" who did no due diligence over indicted UN briber Ng Lap Seng - then evicted and still restricts the Press which asked here about it. Audit here, Para 37-40, 20b; NYT here.
In response to questions, Haley praised the UN peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone, questioned the one in South Sudan and that country's government. She noted that countries make money off their peacekeepers. The case in point, we note, is Burundi, here.
