The Biden administration has asked 18 members of military service advisory boards, including 11 officials appointed by former President Trump, to resign or be fired, the White House confirmed Wednesday.
Why it matters: The officials include prominent former Trump advisors — like former counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway and former press secretary Sean Spicer who were appointed to Air Force Academy and Naval Academy boards respectively — just before the former president left office.
Other officials include former national security adviser H.R. McMaster on the West Point board, former Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought on the Naval Academy's board and former White House liaison to the Justice Department Heidi Stirrup.
What she's saying: "The president's objective ... was to ensure you have nominees and people serving on these boards who are qualified to serve on them and who are aligned with our core values," press secretary Jen Psaki said at a briefing Wednesday.
"I will let others evaluate whether they think Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer and others were qualified, or not political, to serve on these boards."
Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer
The Department of Education has canceled more than $9 billion in student loan debt since President Biden has come into office with moves that will affect more than 563,000 borrowers.
The agency confirmed the new top-line figure upon its recent announcement detailing its cancellation of $1.1 billion in debt for 115,000 borrowers that attended ITT Technical Institute, which is now defunct.
The department said borrowers receiving relief attended ITT during a period in which the institution misrepresented its finances and misled students about “unaffordable private loans that were allegedly portrayed as grant aid.”
“ITT's malfeasance drove its financial resources away from educating students in order to keep the school in business for years longer than it likely would otherwise have, resulting in debts that are being discharged starting today,” the agency said.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said ITT, which closed permanently in 2016, "hid its true financial state from borrowers" for years "while luring many of them into taking out private loans with misleading and unaffordable terms that may have caused borrowers to leave school."