Exclusive | Top Trump official calls US airstrikes on Iran pointless, suggests deep state swayed prez

WASHINGTON — A top staffer in the federal agency overseeing personnel for the Trump administration has denounced the US strikes on Iran as “pointless” and suggested the decision was made by members of DC’s “deep state.”Andrew Kloster, who serves as general counsel at the Office of Personnel Management, tweeted — and then deleted — a string of posts ripping the US for having sent “handouts” to Israel in the past and for previously downplaying the threat of Tehran getting a nuclear weapon.Within a half-hour of President Trump announcing successful US airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities Saturday night, Kloster wrote on X, “I apologize and will never again doubt the power of the deep state.”In a response to an X user saying that “Iran’s nuclear sites being crushed seems a long-term benefit for the US,” Kloster wrote, “I think it was just kind of pointless.”He also boosted a post from Vish Burra, disgraced former New York Rep.George Santos’ ex-director of operations, that referred to Israel’s conflict with Iran as a “tribal squabble” after Tehran broke a cease-fire Trump secured Monday night.The posts — still visible as of Tuesday morning — have since been deleted.The senior official’s candid commentary is extremely unusual — due in part to the fact that he can be fired at will as a political appointee.OPM also has a role in implementing Trump’s “Schedule F” directive to ensure that non-political appointees in the federal bureaucracy are upholding the president’s policies.In April, Trump tweeted that pursuant to one of his Day One executive orders, all career government employees would need to “be held to the highest standards of conduct and performance.“If these government workers refuse to advance the policy interests of the President, or are engaging in corrupt behavior, they should no longer have a job,” Trump added.Kloster’s posts reflected the broad unease among Trump’s non-interventionist su...