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szdaily -> Special Report -> 
Mira Ricardel, White House aide who crossed Melania Trump
    2018-11-16  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

MIRA RICARDEl barely lasted seven months as U.S. deputy national security adviser before first lady Melania Trump issued an unprecedented call for her dismissal and President Donald Trump removed her from the White House.

Ricardel was officially forced from her job at the White House on Wednesday, according to an announcement from White House press secretary Sarah Sanders. She will move to a different job in the administration.

Ricardel is a former U.S. Commerce Department official handpicked by John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser, to serve as his deputy.

She ran afoul of the first lady and her staff in negotiations over the first lady’s trip to Africa in October and the use of government resources for the trip, a senior administration official said.

Melania Trump’s office took the extraordinary step of issuing a statement Tuesday saying that Ricardel should be ousted. While U.S. first ladies historically have been known to pressure their husbands over official business, they do not typically issue statements about it.

“It is the position of the Office of the First Lady that she (Ricardel) no longer deserves the honor of serving in this White House,” Stephanie Grisham, the first lady’s spokeswoman, had said.

Bolton, who was in Singapore when news of Ricardel’s dismissal broke, had fought behind the scenes to keep Ricardel from being forced out but ultimately lost the battle, two officials said.

In those few months on the national security job, Ricardel generated a long list of enemies and developed a reputation for shouting at subordinates, plotting against White House officials she disliked and leaking stories about her administration opponents to the press.

One source familiar with the situation said Ricardel’s firing is due in part to her “bullying” of aides both above and below her. A source familiar with Ricardel’s White House performance said she has run afoul of much of the National Security Council staff and “sort of alienated everyone” except for Bolton.

Current and former colleagues of Ricardel paint a picture of a committed conservative and national security expert with a strong personality.

One former colleague described her as someone who doesn’t “suffer fools” or have a nuanced touch when it comes to navigating the shoals of internal politics. A White House official was blunter, describing the California native as ideologically driven and “obstinate.”

The former State Department and Pentagon official made enemies of heavyweights within the Trump administration, feuding with Chief of Staff John Kelly, his deputy Zach Fuentes, and locked horns with Defense Secretary James Mattis, according to sources familiar with the White House intrigue.

But her spat with the first lady’s staff over Mrs. Trump’s trip to Africa seems to have earned her the enmity of the person who may wield the most weight with Trump: his wife.

The president told people Tuesday that he had made the decision to fire Ricardel, but that he was giving her time to clear her desk.

Ricardel was raised in Pasadena, the child of a Croatian immigrant, and went on to study at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and then do doctoral work at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Her father, Peter Radielovic, had survived the Bleiburg Massacre before leaving Croatia in 1954 and arriving in the United States in 1956. She talked about him in a congressional testimony last year, telling senators her late father came to America with “little more than optimism in his pockets.”

“He was always optimistic about what was possible in this great nation — a view that carried him from Croatia via Germany to the United States,” she said.

While at the Fletcher School, she met Robert Baratta, who has been involved in aspects of Virginia politics and the federal government. They married and she became known as Mira Baratta.

Politically, Ricardel has characterized herself as a “Reagan Republican.” Her public service began in 1986, working as a congressional affairs specialist.

She went on to hold positions in three Republican administrations, working in the departments of state, defense and commerce, as well as acting as an aide to then-Republican Senate leader Bob Dole, who achieved the Republican nomination but lost the general election to Bill Clinton in the 1996 presidential campaign.

During that period, Baratta’s Croatian heritage brought forth accusations that she was influencing Dole to take an anti-Serbian policy stance. But in fact Dole had a long record of warning about the actions and character of Serbia leader Slobodan Milosevic.

She later served as a vice president for programing with the nonprofit organization Freedom House from 1997 to 1998 and as an independent consultant from 1998 to 2000. During some of this time she lived in New York City and was a close neighbor of Monica Lewinsky.

Under former U.S. President George W. Bush, Ricardel worked in the Defense Department as a deputy assistant secretary for defense in Eurasia after the Sept. 11 attacks, serving a major role in the region and helping coordinate where troops and other assets would be stationed.

After her marriage to Robert Baratta ended, she married Vincent Ricardel, a photographer. She became known as Mira Ricardel.

From 2003 to 2005, she was the primary adviser to the U.S. Secretary of Defense regarding Europe, Eurasia, NATO, nuclear forces, missile defense, and arms control. She received the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service on July 14, 2005.

She has also worked in the private sector, including at Boeing, before becoming a member of Trump’s presidential transition team as a Pentagon adviser.

Bolton, the U.S. national security adviser, said when he tapped her to be his deputy in April that she “has a track record of successfully managing teams and diverse organizations, as well as addressing complex issues.”

And yet repeatedly during Ricardel’s tenure, news stories trickled out of the troubled White House that suggested she wasn’t managing teams or working within them particularly well.

In the words of The Washington Post, “she developed a reputation as a Russia hawk and was seen as a tough bureaucratic player with a strong personality.” One former colleague later said, “she’s a very tough woman, very smart, does not suffer fools well. And if you happen to be the fool, she will let you know.”

Most famously, she clashed with Mattis during the transition. Ricardel blocked some of his picks for Pentagon positions because they included former Obama administration officials who she felt were not strict Republican loyalists, multiple defense officials have told CNN.

Mattis then blocked Ricardel from getting a high-level job at the Pentagon. In the months since Ricardel’s arrival at the National Security Council, White House sources have repeatedly leaked stories to the press saying that Ricardel and Bolton were spreading rumors about Mattis’ imminent departure in an effort to pressure the Pentagon chief to leave.

Bolton and Ricardel allegedly believe that Mattis is not “ideologically aligned” with Trump, according to Foreign Policy magazine, which quoted a former official saying that the two were trying “to build the sense that he is done for.”

A former Trump transition official who is close to Ricardel said Ricardel thinks Mattis “never should have been appointed and thinks he’s a Democrat and tells anyone who will listen.”

Ricardel also had a fraught relationship with Kelly and Fuentes, according to sources familiar with the matter. Kelly and Fuentes believed Ricardel was leaking negative stories about them to the press, those sources said.

But Ricardel seems to have crossed a line in taking on Melania Trump’s office over the first lady’s trip to Africa in October, making what some viewed as challenging requests and being obstinate, the White House official told CNN.

One source said that Melania felt that Ricardel tried to short-change her when it came to government resources allocated to support her Africa tour. The first lady had complained to the president that she was unhappy with how she was treated by Ricardel.

Since then, the source continued, some officials said she has been dishonest about what went on and leaked stories to try and cover her behavior. It was said that Ricardel has never even met the first lady.

The former Trump transition official said they were not surprised to hear that Ricardel butted heads with the first lady and her staff. The former transition official characterized Ricardel as “smart and tough,” but acknowledged that she is not always effective at navigating “internal politics.”(SD-Agencies)

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