And the Trump WH is rushing out condolence letters now - using "UPS Overnight" to rush them to families since Trump made his bullshit claim that he had reached out to all families of those servicemen who lost their lives during his Administration.
At least three families of service members killed months ago said that they have now received rush-delivered condolence letters from President Trump.
The families told The Atlantic that they are now receiving letters from Trump after he faced criticism for not calling the families of fallen service members, after claiming he had done so. Many of the letters, according to The Atlantic, were sent next-day by UPS.
Timothy Eckels’ son was killed when the USS John S. McCain collided with an oil tanker on Aug. 21, but Eckels said he didn’t receive a letter from Trump until Oct. 20 — two days into the controversy over Trump contacting the families of fallen soldiers.
“Honestly, I feel the letter is reactionary to the media storm brewing over how these things have been handled,” Eckels told The Atlantic.
“I’ve received letters from McCain, Mattis, and countless other officials before his. I wasn’t sure if the fact that the accident that caused Timothy’s death has still yet to officially have the cause determined played into the timing of our president’s response.”
http://thehill.com/homenews/adminis...eceive-rush-delivered-condolence-letters-from
WH Aides were in a panic upon hearing Trump make that claim during the presser, knowing it was false and "hustled" to try to get an up to date list from DoD -
In the hours after President Donald Trump said on an Oct. 17 radio broadcast that he had contacted nearly every family that had lost a military servicemember this year, the White House was hustling to learn from the Pentagon the identities and contact information for those families, according to an internal Defense Department email.
The email exchange, which has not been previously reported, shows that senior White House aides were aware on the day the president made the statement that it was not accurate — but that they should try to make it accurate as soon as possible, given the gathering controversy.
Not only had the president not contacted virtually all the families of military personnel killed this year, the White House did not even have an up-to-date list of those who had been killed.
The exchange between the White House and the Defense secretary’s office occurred about 5 p.m. on Oct. 17. The White House asked the Pentagon for information about surviving family members of all servicemembers killed after Trump’s inauguration so that the president could be sure to contact all of them.
Capt. Hallock Mohler, the executive secretary to Defense Secretary James Mattis, provided the White House with information in the 5 p.m. email about how each servicemember had died and the identity of his or her survivors, including phone numbers.
The email’s subject line was, “Condolence Letters Since 20 January 2017.”
Mohler indicated in the email that he was responding to a request from the president’s staff for information through Ylber Bajraktari, an aide on the National Security Council. The objective was to figure out who among so-called Gold Star families of the fallen Trump had yet to call. Mohler’s email said that the president’s aides “reached out to Ylber looking for the following ASAP from DOD.”
https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/after-trump-claim-white-house-still-lacked-casualty-list
