Alarm as Donald Trump installs loyalists in Pentagon amid desperate bid to cling to power

Donald Trump has installed loyalists in senior military roles in a highly unusual reshuffle amid the President’s desperate bid to cling on to power.

Pentagon policy has been handed to a man who branded Barack Obama a “terrorist”.

And the new Chief of Staff to the Defence Secretary helped produce a dossier accusing senior Justice Department figures of “bias” against Trump.

The top-level turnover should be “alarming to all Americans”, Adam Smith, the Democrat chairman of the House armed services committee said.

He said: “It is hard to overstate just how dangerous high-level turnover at the department of defence is during a period of presidential transition.”

He added: “If this is the beginning of a trend – the president either firing or forcing out national security professionals in order to replace them with people perceived as more loyal to him – then the next 70 days will be precarious at best and downright dangerous at worst.”

It follows the summary dismissal of Defence Secretary Mark Esper, who learned he was being sacked just minutes before the President announced it on Twitter on Monday.

Esper was replaced by Christopher Miller, who had been the director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

The Pentagon said Kash Patel, who was the top counter-terrorism adviser on the White House National Security Council, would be Miller's chief of staff.

Patel worked as a top aide to Representative Devin Nunes, the pro-Trump Republican who chaired the House Intelligence Committee and now is its top minority member. While working for Nunes, Patel helped produce a memo accusing the FBI and Department of Justice of bias against Trump.

In the wake of Esper's departure, the Pentagon's top policy adviser resigned, allowing that post to be filled by Anthony Tata, a retired Army brigadier general who has called Obama "a terrorist leader."

Tata failed to secure a Senate confirmation hearing in August and was performing the duties of the deputy undersecretary of defense for policy.