In hindsight it is quite clear the professional political class had two approaches toward candidate Donald Trump:
♦ Approach #1 was to eliminate him: see spygate, surveillance, FBI, DOJ and CIA operations to destroy the threat etc.; the Special Counsel Mueller investigation is an ongoing continuance of that primary approach.
♦ Approach #2 was an effort involving the republican side of the deep state apparatus, who could be deployed as a controlling influence, on the inside. [These would be the same people who earlier constructed the failed 2016 campaign ‘splitter strategy’ to help nominate Jeb Bush.] Ongoing decepticon turnover, in opposition to the Trump policy implementation, seemingly reflects the consequences of the secondary approach.
While in charge of the transition team, Vice-President-elect Pence relied heavily on former Bush Secretary of State Condi Rice for cabinet and administration recommendations:
(Link)
Condi Rice recommended: Rex Tillerson, HR McMaster, Nikki Haley and James Mattis.
FLASHBACK – In the months prior to the September 11th, 2001 attack, Condi Rice was the National Security Adviser to President Bush:
On July 10, 2001, two months before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet met with his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, at CIA headquarters to review the latest on Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Black laid out the case, consisting of communications intercepts and other top-secret intelligence showing the increasing likelihood that al-Qaeda would soon attack the United States. It was a mass of fragments and dots that nonetheless made a compelling case, so compelling to Tenet that he decided he and Black should go to the White House immediately.
Tenet called Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, from the car and said he needed to see her right away. There was no practical way she could refuse such a request from the CIA director.
For months, Tenet had been pressing Rice to set a clear counterterrorism policy, including specific presidential orders called “findings” that would give the CIA stronger authority to conduct covert action against bin Laden. Perhaps a dramatic appearance — Black called it an “out of cycle” session, beyond Tenet’s regular weekly meeting with Rice — would get her attention. (read more)
Centinel2012 