Trump names former staffer Katie Miller to Musk-led DOGE panel

Katie Miller, press secretary for US Vice President Mike Pence, arrives in the East Room prior to US President Donald Trump hosting an event to discuss a plan aimed at helping to prevent suicides by US veterans and other Americans, at the White House in Washington, US, June 17, 2020. (Reuters)
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Updated 23 December 2024
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Trump names former staffer Katie Miller to Musk-led DOGE panel

  • Katie Miller will soon be joining DOGE! She has been a loyal supporter of mine for many years, and will bring her professional experience to Government Efficiency, Trump posts

WASHINGTON: President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday named Katie Miller, who served in Trump’s first administration and is the wife of his incoming deputy chief of staff, as one of the first members of an advisory board to be led by billionaire allies Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy that aims to drastically slash government spending, federal regulations and the federal workforce.
Miller, wife of Trump’s designated homeland security adviser Stephen Miller, will join Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an informal advisory body that Trump has said will enable his administration to “slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.”
“Katie Miller will soon be joining DOGE! She has been a loyal supporter of mine for many years, and will bring her professional experience to Government Efficiency,” Trump posted in a message on his social media platform Truth Social.
Musk and Ramaswamy recently revealed plans to wipe out scores of federal regulations crafted by what they say is an anti-democratic, unaccountable bureaucracy, but have yet to announce members of the DOGE team. Musk has said he wants to slash the number of federal agencies from over 400 to 99.
Katie Miller had served in the first Trump adminstration as deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security and as press secretary for former Vice President Mike Pence.
She is currently a spokesperson for the transition team for Trump’s designated Health and Human Services secretary, Robert Kennedy Jr.


Myanmar expels East Timor envoy after rights group complaint against junta

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Myanmar expels East Timor envoy after rights group complaint against junta

  • Myanmar has been in turmoil since 2021, when the military ousted the elected government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi
Myanmar has ordered the head ‌of East Timor’s diplomatic mission to leave the country within seven days, state media quoted the foreign ministry as saying on Monday, in an escalating row ​over a criminal complaint filed by a rights group against Myanmar’s armed forces.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since 2021, when the military ousted the elected government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, sparking a wave of anti-junta protests that have morphed into a nationwide civil war.
Myanmar’s Chin state Human Rights Organization (CHRO) last month filed a complaint with the justice ‌department of East Timor, ‌also known as Timor-Leste, alleging that ​the ‌Myanmar junta ⁠had ​carried out ⁠war crimes and crimes against humanity since the 2021 coup.
In January, CHRO officials also met East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta, who last year led the tiny Catholic nation’s accession into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is also a member.
CHRO filed the complaint in East Timor because it was seeking ⁠an ASEAN member with an independent judiciary ‌as well as a country that would ‌be sympathetic to the suffering of ​Chin State’s majority Christian population, ‌the group’s Executive Director Salai Za Uk said.
“Such unconstructive engagement by ‌a Head of State of one ASEAN Member State with an unlawful organization opposing another ASEAN Member State is totally unacceptable,” the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar quoted the foreign ministry as saying.
A spokesman for ‌the Myanmar junta did not respond to calls seeking comment.
In early February, CHRO said East Timor’s ⁠judicial authorities had ⁠opened legal proceedings against the Myanmar junta, including its chief Min Aung Hlaing, following the complaint filed by the rights group.
Myanmar’s foreign ministry said East Timor’s acceptance of the case and the country’s appointment of a prosecutor to look into it resulted in “setting an unprecedented practice, negative interpretation and escalation of (public) resentments.”
East Timor’s embassy in Myanmar did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent via email.
The diplomatic spat comes as the Myanmar military faces international scrutiny for its role in an ​alleged genocide against the minority ​Muslim Rohingya in a case being heard at the International Court of Justice.
Myanmar has denied the charge.