Trump taps his most trusted officials to do as many as four jobs -- at the same time [View all]
Source: NBC News
May 19, 2025, 5:00 AM EDT
WASHINGTON — Jamieson Greer has a big job — three of them, actually. As U.S. trade representative, Greer has been flying around the world at Donald Trump’s behest, negotiating with countries over the tariffs that the president imposed. On top of that, he is the government’s official watchdog. The White House has appointed Greer both acting director of the Office of Government Ethics and acting head of the Office of Special Counsel.
Cutting trade deals to Trump’s liking is one thing. Holding the Trump administration accountable for ethical lapses is something different. The missions would seem incompatible. Yet Greer’s hybrid role isn’t so much an anomaly in Trump’s second term as a norm. Trump has taken some Cabinet members and senior administration officials and layered on additional work that calls for wholly different sets of skills.
Daniel Driscoll is secretary of the Army, but also the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The first job is about keeping soldiers in fighting trim; the second includes cracking down on contraband cigarettes. Marco Rubio is secretary of state, national security adviser and, for good measure, acting head of the National Archives and Records Administration, with its collection of rare documents that include Thomas Edison’s patent application for the light bulb. He is also the acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development — or what's left of it, anyway, after the Trump administration effectively dismantled it.
Trump recently named Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche the acting head of the Library of Congress. The Justice Department upholds the nation’s laws and advances Trump’s agenda; the library is supposed to give lawmakers independent research they request. The dual postings give rise to a tangle of managerial challenges, constitutional questions and potential conflicts of interest, critics contend.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/trump-taps-trusted-officials-four-jobs-rubio-rcna206500
= new reply since forum marked as read