NOMINATIONS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/USDA: “Former Trump campaign aide Sam Clovis, who has been swept up in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, has withdrawn from consideration to be the Department of Agriculture’s chief scientist, according to a letter Clovis sent on Wednesday to President Donald Trump.
Clovis had been under criticism for months for his lack of science credentials and, in recent days, for his role supervising George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign foreign policy adviser who struck a plea deal on charges he lied to FBI investigators about his communications with Russia-linked contacts…
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued a brief statement saying: “We respect Mr. Clovis’ decision to withdraw his nomination.”
A senior administration official said Clovis’ nomination to be the USDA’s undersecretary for research, education and economics was already in hot water due to scrutiny of his agriculture and science credentials. The official said the latest revelations about Papadopoulos “made it pretty clear he wasn’t going to get through the process.”
While being linked to the investigations surrounding the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russian interests was the one headline that Clovis couldn’t withstand, the controversy over Clovis’ qualifications had dogged him even before the White House sent his nomination up to the Senate this summer.”
-Andrew Restuccia, Josh Dawsey, and Helena Bottemiller Evich, “Trump USDA pick, linked to Russia probe, withdraws from consideration,” Politico, Nov. 2, 2017 01:06pm