U.S. President Donald Trump faces reporters with U.S. hostage negotiator Robert O'Brien after he named O'Brien as his fourth White House national security adviser at Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, California, U.S., September 18, 2019. REUTERS/Tom Brenner
Politico: Trump’s plan to shrink NSC staff draws fire
The changes have long been in the works, but they're happening amid an impeachment probe that has deepened the president's distrust of his staff.
White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien is moving quickly to shrink and reshape his staff – rattling some nerves already frayed by the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.
The changes at the National Security Council are both sweeping and minute: several dozen policy roles will be eliminated as staffers return to their home agencies or leave government in the coming two months; at least two NSC divisions are being phased out completely; a third, meanwhile, has been handed off to a separate White House-based group.
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WNU Editor: There were too many leaks coming out of the administration on foreign policy decisions and telephone calls that only stopped when President Trump started to limit the access that the NSC had to his decisions and discussions. It looks like the NSC undermined itself.
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President Trump has discussed dismissing the intelligence community’s inspector general, Michael Atkinson, because Mr. Atkinson reported a whistle-blower’s complaint about Mr. Trump’s interactions with Ukraine to Congress after concluding it was credible, according to four people familiar with the discussions.
---Mr. Trump first expressed his dismay about Mr. Atkinson around the time the whistle-blower’s complaint became public in September. In recent weeks, he has continued to raise with aides the possibility of firing him, one of the people said.
---The president has said he does not understand why Mr. Atkinson shared the complaint, which outlined how Mr. Trump asked the Ukrainian president to investigate Mr. Trump’s political rivals at the same time he was withholding military aid from the country. He has said he believes Mr. Atkinson, whom he appointed in 2017, has been disloyal, one of the people said.
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People close to the president believe the political consequences of firing Mr. Atkinson could be devastating, especially when Mr. Trump needs all the Republican support he can get for a potential impeachment trial in the Senate.
The NSC has indeed undermined itself. Career autocrats who have convinced themselves that they alone run US foreign policy. How dare a legitimately elected president presume to act without their consent. And that's just it. They are there to ADVISE. The idea that they "consent" to President Trump's policies - to "permit" them - is a construct that resides in their minds and egos alone.
Trump considered firing the Inspector General who found the whistleblower complaint credible.
Hardly surprising, because Trump tried to fire Mueller and faced no consequences whatsoever.https://t.co/MAbwooulUJ
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti)November 12, 2019
Eric Ciaramella is not credible except as a soy boy lackey doing the bidding of Brennan.
It is understandable that Trump and many conservatives cannot fathom a force dedicated to working for the good of the country, the people, all of the people.
What did the huge increase in numbers during the last administrations
do for the country?
I say trim the budget. I would also eliminate the Department of Education in order to trim the budget.
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