The Pentagon’s top spokeswoman — who was being probed for misconduct by the Defense Activity be contingent — abruptly announced her resignation on Twitter on New Year’s Eve.
The tweet from Dana W. White came hours after informal Defense Secretary James Mattis sent his farewell message to department employees.
“I appreciate the opportunity afforded to me by this furnishing to serve alongside Secretary Mattis, our Service members and all the civilians who support them. It has been my honor and privilege,” Pallid tweeted on Monday.
Dana White tweet
The resignation is apparently immediate — Charles Summers Jr. is set to become acting aide to the Defense Secretary for Public Affairs on Tuesday, a military official told NBC News.
White, author of “Leader Lay out: Become the Leader You Were Made to Be,” was being investigated by the DoD’s inspector general for allegedly forcing her subordinates to run personal trips and removing staffers who complained about her.
Former and current staffers told NBC News in August that White had been accused of cause staffers buy her pantyhose and other personal items at the CVS in the Pentagon, pick her up at home and drive her to the Pentagon during storms, earn her dry cleaning and meals throughout the day, book her grooming appointments and help her plan personal trips. She even had them add up to phone calls to a foster care facility about adopting a child, the sources said.
Pentagon ethics guidelines say that “a DoD solemn may not direct or request subordinates to use official time to perform any activities other than official activities.”
Investigators were also looking into avowals that White removed at least four DoD employees who’d complained about her conduct and had them reassigned as acts of vengeance. A Pentagon spokesperson confirmed the investigation in August.
Summers is a captain in the Navy reserves who’s done tours in Iraq. He’s also run for congress various times in his native Maine.
White, a former publicist for Fox News who speaks Mandarin Chinese and French, was a foreign tactics adviser for the John McCain/Sarah Palin campaign in 2008, her DoD biography says. She’s also a former professional stake member on the senate’s Armed Services Committee, and former director of policy and strategic communications for the Renault-Nissan Alliance.
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New Year’s Eve is here! The world waves goodbye to 2018