Report: Trump Allies Slam DHS Secretary Nielsen as 'Never Trumper'

President Trump allies in the White House privately slam Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen as a “Never Trumper,” a new report alleges.

According to sources with Politico, Trump’s allies in the administration are not keen on Nielsen’s running of DHS, allegedly calling her a member of the failed “Never Trump” movement.

The Politico report claims that “associates” of Trump make “the case that she’s a closeted ‘never Trumper’ who still doesn’t fully back his agenda.”

Breitbart News was the first to report on Nielsen’s ties to the Never Trump movement last year. For example, former Bush official Tom Ridge praised Nielsen as a “homeland security veteran” and “a patriot” during her nomination process for the job. A year before, Ridge was one of 95 Republican establishment former national security officials who signed a letter opposing Trump in 2016 for his “America First” agenda.

Another example is Nielsen’s friend, former Bush official Frances Townsend, who praised her as well for the DHS nomination, calling her “tough as nails.” During the 2016 presidential election, though, Townsend signed a letter with other national security bureaucrats where she called Trump “so utterly unfitted to the office.”

The sources tell Politico that Trump, like his advisers, is increasingly put off by Nielsen’s running of DHS where illegal immigration has soured at the U.S.-Mexico border for months.

One former White House official says Trump feels as though Chief of Staff John Kelly forced Nielsen on him for the DHS job, prompting Trump to want to rescind her nomination after he found out that she had a history of working for President George W. Bush.

Politico reports:

Trump’s advisers have been increasingly criticizing the Homeland Security chief in private conversations with the president, arguing that she isn’t doing enough to improve border security and noting that she wasn’t a vocal Trump supporter during the campaign, three people familiar with the internal discussions told POLITICO. [Emphasis added]

As a result, Trump has come to believe that Nielsen — who considered quitting this week after the president berated her over an uptick in migrant arrests — is not focused enough on carrying out his immigration agenda, one of the people said. The president has told friends that he believes chief of staff John Kelly, with whom he has a strained relationship, foisted his deputy Nielsen upon him, according to two of the people, complaining that he didn’t know what he was getting. [Emphasis added]

“He was surprised, after Kelly pushed for her nomination, to learn that she was a Bushie in the 43 administration and was not a Trump supporter during the campaign,” one former administration official said. [Emphasis added]

Nielsen has allegedly come under fire by Trump and his advisers as illegal immigration has continued to skyrocket at the southern border. As Breitbart News reported, Nielsen supposedly was planning to quit after being berated by Trump on immigration during a cabinet meeting but was “implored” not to leave the administration by her close ally, John Kelly.

Last week, Nielsen went as far as to plead with foreign nationals to use the Ports of Entry to seek asylum during congressional testimony, despite the border being inundated with more than 30,000 asylum-seekers over the last three months of 2017.

One immigration expert who spoke to Breitbart News called Nielsen’s pleading for more asylum-seekers a “colossal mistake” that was “negligence in testimony.”