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James Mattis

Official Department of Defense portrait of James Mattis.
Source: Monica King / United States Department of Defense · Rights/use: CC BY 2.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/; resized and encoded derivative · Modified: cropped and resized
PersonExternal ties & fallout5 relationships

Trump's first secretary of defense, who resigned in December 2018 citing the president's right to a secretary whose views were better aligned.

Relationship to Trumpdefense secretary in Trump's first administrationpolitical / 2 sources

Status

  1. Former defense secretary publicly condemning Trumprelationship / 2020-06-03–2020-06-031 source · Lead source
  2. Defense secretary departure accelerated to December 31, 2018office / 2018-12-31–2018-12-311 source · Lead source
  3. Former defense secretaryoffice / 2017-01-20–2018-12-312 sources · Lead source

Exact relationships

  1. Donald J. Trump

    Relationship to Trumpdefense secretary in Trump's first administration

    politicalOpen evidence · 2 sourcesdocumented
  2. Donald J. Trump

    former defense secretary

    politicalOpen evidence · 1 sourcedocumented
  3. Donald J. Trump

    former defense secretary

    politicalOpen evidence · 1 sourcedocumented
  4. Donald J. Trump

    former defense secretary

    politicalOpen evidence · 1 sourcedocumented
  5. Donald J. Trump

    former defense secretary who resigned over policy differences

    politicalOpen evidence · 2 sourcesdocumented

Record timeline

  1. Mattis becomes Trump's first defense secretaryServed as defense secretary from January 2017 through December 2018defense secretary in Trump's first administration · documented · 2 sources
  2. Mattis resigns over differences with TrumpFormer secretary of defenseformer defense secretary who resigned over policy differences · documented · 2 sources
  3. Trump pushes Mattis out early after publishing his resignation letterFormer defense secretaryformer defense secretary · documented · 1 source
  4. Mattis breaks his silence and accuses Trump of abusing military power against AmericansPublicly estranged from Trumpformer defense secretary · documented · 1 source
  5. Mattis says Trump fomented the Capitol assault through falsehoods and political intimidationAttributed assessment from former defense secretaryformer defense secretary · documented · 1 source