What's the most important qualification for any job in Trumpworld? Loyalty to the VSG

This appointment of Richard Grennell as acting director of national intelligence is not going over well:

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he has named Richard Grenell, a staunch loyalist, as acting spy chief.

"I am pleased to announce that our highly respected Ambassador to Germany, @RichardGrenell, will become the Acting Director of National Intelligence. Rick has represented our Country exceedingly well and I look forward to working with him," Trump tweeted. 

Trump also thanked outgoing acting director Joseph Maguire "for the wonderful job he has done, and we look forward to working with him closely, perhaps in another capacity within the Administration!"

News of the pick, which was first reported by the New York Times, comes as Trump faces a March 11 deadline to nominate a new director of national intelligence or name a new acting spy chief as federal law prevents Maguire from serving beyond that date.

Even in an acting role, Grenell's lack of intelligence-related experience is likely to unsettle the US intelligence community, which has endured repeated attacks from the President since his 2016 election win over the Russia investigation and later the whistleblower complaint that gave way to the Ukraine impeachment inquiry, which made Trump just the third president in American history to be impeached.

But it does not appear that Trump is looking for someone with deep intelligence experience in the role -- a former senior White House official described Trump's decision as "filling the gaps" following the impeachment acquittal, sensing disloyalty in Maguire, and filling that position with somebody he sees as sufficiently loyal. Trump is "looking for a 'political' who will have his back," the former official said.

However, the move is raising concerns even among Trump allies who have been quick to point out that Grenell's primary qualification appears to be his loyalty to the President. 

One source close to Trump told CNN they were surprised by the pick, noting Grenell has zero intelligence-related experience.

And another Trump adviser described Grenell as "out of his league" for the acting DNI job, adding that some in the administration are "embarrassed by his behavior." Previous holders of the DNI job have served in the intelligence community, the US Senate and senior levels of the military. Grenell, on the other hand, does not boast a resume with similar credentials despite his stint as the US ambassador to Germany. 

"Everybody came into (the DNI job) with a relevant understanding, of which this guy has none," said Bob Litt, former ODNI general counsel, who called the move "extremely dangerous."

"This is a President who has loathed and feared the (intelligence community) since before he was inaugurated and he views them as a deep state hostile to him seeking to undercut him and he'll seek to undercut them," he said. "Clearly the important thing here is the President feels Grenell will do his bidding."

He seems like a sharp enough fellow, and before the Trump phenomenon occurred, he seemed to have a skill for articulating conservative positions on whatever the topic of discussion was. But it's true he has nothing of an intelligence nature on his resume. He's been a political consultant. That's it.

 The above-excerpted CNN story alludes to "[h]is track record in Germany [having] raised some concerns." I wanted to find out a little more about that, and his Wikipedia bio gets into some of the details:

In May 2018, within hours of taking office in Berlin as US Ambassador, Grenell offended diplomats and business leaders when he tweeted that “German companies doing business in Iran should wind down operations immediately.”^[29] The tweet was widely perceived as a threat, with the Foreign Minister of Luxembourg, Jean Asselborn, commenting that "This man was accredited as ambassador only yesterday. To give German businesses such orders … that’s just not how you can treat your allies.”^[30] The leader of Germany's Social Democratic Partystated that Grenell "does appear to need some tutoring" in the "fine art of diplomacy", while the Die Linke party urged the Merkel government to summon Grenell to explain his comments.^[30]

In June 2018, Grenell stirred controversy by telling Breitbart News, "I absolutely want to empower other conservatives throughout Europe, other leaders."^[31] It was viewed as anti-establishment.^[32][33] This was described as a breach of diplomatic protocol and a breach of Article 14 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which requires ambassadors to be politically neutral in the domestic politics of the countries where they serve.^[34][31] Prominent German politicians called for Grenell's dismissal.^{[35][36][37][38]} Martin Schulz, former leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, said, "What this man is doing is unheard of in international diplomacy. If a German ambassador were to say in Washington that he is there to boost the Democrats, he would have been kicked out immediately."^[35]

Grenell was a regular contributor on Fox News's Tucker Carlson Tonight during the first few months of his Ambassadorship in Germany. In November 2018 he made an appearance where he repeated his criticism of Angela Merkel's immigration policies and compared her unfavorably to the recently-elected Chancellor of Austria Sebastian Kurz, whom he claimed "won in a very big way" because of his strict stance on immigration. The magazine Der Spiegel called it a "thinly veiled call for a change of government in Berlin".^[34]

In December 2018, during the affair surrounding Der Spiegel journalist Claas Relotius, Grenell wrote to the magazine complaining about an anti-Americaninstitutional bias ("Anti-Amerikanismus") and asked for an independent investigation.^[39][40] Grenell wrote that "These fake news stories largely focus on U.S. policies and certain segments of the American people."^[41]

In January 2019, Grenell told Handelsblatt that European companies participating in the construction of Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline are "always in danger, because sanctions are always possible". The Trump administration has long opposed the Russian-backed Nord Stream 2 — a pipeline for delivering natural gas from Russia to Germany.^[42] Within that context he also sent letters to German companies involved in the construction of said Nord Stream 2, threatening sanctions.^[43] In response, Angela Merkel's successor as leader of the Christian Democrat Union, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, stated that "The American Ambassador operates in a, shall I say, somewhat unusual diplomatic manner."^[44]

Der Spiegel published a profile of Grenell on January 11, 2019, using interviews with 30 “American and German diplomats, cabinet members, lawmakers, high-ranking officials, lobbyists and think tank experts". The magazine claimed that "Almost all of these sources paint an unflattering portrait of the ambassador, one remarkably similar to Donald Trump, the man who sent him to Berlin. A majority of them describe Grenell as a vain, narcissistic person who dishes out aggressively, but can barely handle criticism." The profile claimed that Grenell is politically isolated in Berlin because of his association with the far-right Alternative for Germany Party, causing the leaders of the mainstream German parties, including the Chancellor herself, to avoid contact with him.^[34] The sources claimed that Grenell "knows little about Germany and Europe, that he ignores most of the dossiers his colleagues at the embassy write for him, and that his knowledge of the subject matter is superficial."^[34]

A disrupter in the Trumpian mold.

And I doubt that the search for someone to officially fill that position is going to turn up a lot of first-tier possibilities.