The U.S. Deputy Secretary of State under former U.S. President George W. Bush, Richard Armitage, has stated that he will be voting for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in what is considered one of the most dramatic signs yet that national security elites in the Republican party are distancing themselves from supporting their party’s presumptive nominee.
A retired Navy officer, Armitage also served as an assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan. Clinton’s aides consider him to be the highest-ranking former GOP national security official to openly support the former U.S. Secretary of State over Trump.
“If Donald Trump is the nominee, I would vote for Hillary Clinton,” Armitage told POLITICO in a brief interview. “He doesn’t appear to be a Republican, he doesn’t appear to want to learn about issues. So, I’m going to vote for Mrs. Clinton.”
In recent days, several Republican foreign policy elites have already declared an unwillingness to support or work for the controversial candidate, but there are still many who are unlikely to cast a ballot for Clinton, including neoconservative military analyst and historian Max Boot, former longtime Chief of Staff to Republican Senator John McCain, Mark Salter, and retired Army Col. Peter Mansour, who is a former top aide to retired General David Petraeus.
However, it is becoming clear that more national security powerhouses with conservative credentials could show opposition to Trump in the coming months. Several retired army officials with strong connections to the Republican party have been left quite unimpressed over Trump’s candidacy and are contemplating going public about their displeasure.
According to an unnamed retired general who served in an influential role under Obama, former generals are wary of the recent political changes, but heexpects them to make a bold statement in the coming months.
Retired four-star Marine General James T. Mattis has even recently considered throwing his hat in the ring by entering the 2016 presidential race as an independent candidate and will receive a lot of backing from a group of anti-Trump Republicans that include Weekly Standard editor William Kristol. According to Kristol, the general is very serious about the idea, and although he has never declared a party affiliation in his long and illustrious career, the Weekly Standard editor is believed to lean Republican.
Armitage became a prominent personality back in 2006 when he admitted to revealing the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA agent, to the columnist Robert Novak after her husband, Joe Wilson, challenged George Bush’s claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Armitage says that he has no idea if more Republicans will follow his recent move but admitted that many of his conservative friends are confused by the choice that lies before them.
“They’re in kind of a fog,” he said.
In other news, TV celebrity Oprah Winfrey has also endorsed Hillary Clinton for the next president of the United States in what could lead to more celebrities throwing their respective hats in the ring.
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