President Trump attacked the U.S. envoy to the coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria for what he called “grandstanding” after his sudden resignation.
Brett McGurk, the top diplomat leading the fight against ISIS by working with the 79-member global coalition, turned in his resignation later Saturday, days after Defense Secretary Jim Mattis did the same in a move that was widely seen as a rebuke of the president’s actions this week.
“Brett McGurk, who I do not know, was appointed by President Obama in 2015. Was supposed to leave in February but he just resigned prior to leaving. Grandstander? The Fake News is making such a big deal about this nothing event!” Trump tweeted.
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McGurk is a veteran diplomat with more than a decade of experience and was reportedly originally planning to leave his job mid-February.
However, his resignation is now effective Dec. 31, after he told his colleagues that he could no longer serve Trump’s administration following the president’s decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria.
“The recent decision by the president came as a shock and was a complete reversal of policy that was articulated to us,” McGurk wrote in an email. “It left our coalition partners confused and our fighting partners bewildered.”
“I worked this week to help manage some of the fallout but — as many of you heard in my meetings and phone calls — I ultimately concluded that I could not carry out these new instructions and maintain my integrity,” he said.
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Trump downplays resignation of anti-ISIS envoy: He's "grandstanding" https://t.co/fmYFgzHvxR
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) December 23, 2018
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