thank teh lord for small mercies
Bannon ousted from National Security Council
White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has been removed from an important seat on the National Security Council - a posting that had stirred controversy for placing one of President Donald Trump’s top political hands in a key national security position.
The change represents the first real diminution of authority for Bannon, who has been cast as an all-powerful whisperer to Trump in the administration’s first 75 days, mocked by his critics as “President Bannon.”
In recent weeks, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, has asked searching questions - sometimes for hours - of inside and outside advisers about the White House's performance and complained about Bannon in particular, according to people who have spoken with Kushner. Kushner, a onetime New York Democrat, and Bannon, a hard-right nationalist, have clashed as Kushner has told people that Bannon’s desire to deconstruct the government is hurting the president.
One person familiar with Kushner's thinking says Kushner believes Bannon is more of a problem than Reince Priebus, the chief of staff.
“Big fight is between nationalists and the ‘West Wing Democrats,'” one senior administration official said.
The White House tried to downplay the significance of Bannon’s removal from the NSC - it went unannounced by the press office - depicting him as simply moving on after successfully completing limited tasks.
“It’s not like this is a major shake-up,” said another administration official.
But Bannon’s exit, revealed in a federal register filing and confirmed by multiple White House officials, is perceived to represent a significant long-term increase in authority for H.R. McMaster, Trump’s new national security adviser, who now has greater authority over the council’s agenda without one of Trump’s closest aides watching closely over him.
“McMaster won,” one NSC official said.
Vice President Mike Pence said Bannon's ouster was not a "demotion" and said it was a "very routine" change.
"With H.R Mcaster as our national security adviser and the president's action adding the chairman of the joint chiefs, adding the director of national intelligence, and moving a couple of our senior personnel off the national security council just simply represents a very routine evolution of the national security team around the president," Pence said in an interview with Fox News Wednesday night.
Pence added that both Bannon and Tom Bossert, who serves as Trump's homeland security adviser and whose role was also reduced, continued to be "highly valued members of this administration."
One White House official said Bannon was placed on the NSC to “babysit" Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who resigned in mid-February after misleading Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
This official said Bannon’s role was also to ensure that the NSC was “de-operationalized” following the Obama administration. “That job is done,” the official said.
“It’s not like he’s been in principal committee meetings constantly saying [to McMaster], ‘You can’t do this, you can't do that,’” another of the officials said. “That hasn’t happened.”
Bannon had not been a regular attendee of NSC principals meetings. One person said he attended one meeting; another said he hadn’t attended any.
Some cautioned not to make too much of Bannon’s removal. “I get a sense that people are going, 'Ding-dong, the witch is dead,'” said Eric Edelman, who served as undersecretary of defense for policy in the George W. Bush administration. “The only thing he doesn’t appear to have is a seat at the NSC principals committee, and it’s not clear how important that will be.”
The immediate reading by several longtime NSC officials and experts was that the policy-making body is reverting to a much more traditional structure - with the national security adviser in the driver’s seat and meetings attended by Cabinet heads, top intelligence officials and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who in the Flynn approach was not even designated a regular member, even as Bannon was.
“It really reflects well on H.R. McMaster, who has orchestrated all the key moves behind the scenes in advance of announcing them and gotten their approval,” David Rothkopf, author of two histories of the NSC, said in an interview. “That is a sign of a smart, effective bureaucrat and leader. This restores the traditional structures to the NSC. It is putting in place a professional team of national security advisers. It gives McMaster more authority and restores the roles of the military and intelligence leadership.”
Lawmakers of both parties welcomed the return to a more traditional NSC structure.
“I'd be very pleased that he would not be on the National Security Council,” Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on Capitol Hill. “My hope is that he would have no role in government at all and would be completely out.”
Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) said downgrading Bannon was a "good move" - and he praised the reinstatement of the Joint Chiefs chairman as a permanent member of the security council.
"The chairman of the Joint Chiefs should be in a permanent position, so I think it's the right thing to do, but it's a decision of the president's," McCain said. "I said at the time that I didn't think a political adviser should be a member of that body because it's never been, so I think it's the right thing to do."
And Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), former chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, tweeted, “Steve Bannon's removal from National Security Council is welcome news.”
The removal of Bannon also raised questions of whether more changes are in the works, in particular the fate of K.T. McFarland, who was brought in as Flynn’s deputy and remains the No. 2 at the NSC.
"Trump loves [McFarland], so I'm not sure McMaster can fire her," an NSC official said.
One NSC source said no additional staffing changes are planned to the agency in the near term, saying that NSC intelligence director Ezra Cohen-Watnick would remain in that post. McMaster had tried to re-assign Cohen-Watnick to a different position last month but was overruled by Trump after Bannon and Kushner intervened.
Cohen-Watnick subsequently became a key player in the controversy over leaked intelligence when it was revealed that he and another White House aide provided House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) with evidence reportedly showing that communications from Trump’s team were intercepted in foreign surveillance by U.S. intelligence.
In addition to Bannon, one other change was made Wednesday. Thomas Bossert, an assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, held co-equal status with Flynn when he was national security adviser. He is now subordinate to McMaster, in another sign of the former general’s empowered role in the Trump White House.
The changes were not welcomed among some Trump loyalists.
Flynn’s son, Michael Flynn Jr., tweeted that “Flynn/Bannon most loyal to DJT (both out at NSC),” using the president’s initials, and he complained that McMaster “wont say ‘Radical Islam.’”
“Is WH serious abt defeating our enemy?” Flynn Jr. wrote.
politee koh
Civil war rages throughout Trump administration
A civil war between Donald Trump loyalists and establishment-minded Republicans is escalating throughout the federal government - and increasingly the president’s allies are losing.
From the State Department to the Environmental Protection Agency, a sharp dividing line has formed: Cabinet secretaries and their handpicked teams of GOP veterans are rushing to take power as Trump campaign staffers - "originals,” as they call themselves - gripe that they’re being pushed aside.
In over a dozen interviews, the originals, many of whom volunteered to work for candidate Trump when few others were willing to do so, complained that they'd been shut out of meetings and targeted with career-destroying leaks. In recent weeks, a number of longtime Trump supporters have abruptly quit, saying they felt the administration had been overtaken by the same establishment they worked to defeat.
The backbiting is further paralyzing federal agencies, which have been hamstrung by slow hiring, disorganization and an overall lack of direction since Trump’s inauguration. Many of the Trump stalwarts were installed at the agencies during the transition to help them prepare for the presidency, part of so-called beachhead teams.
"You're always watching your back,” said Sid Bowdidge, a Trump campaign staffer who quit his Energy Department job after news reports that he made anti-Muslim slurs on social media, stories that he blamed on leaks by rival co-workers. “It doesn't bode well for a cohesive team to be successful toward a common goal. How can you when people are looking over their shoulder to see if they have a knife in their back?"
“As we get further away from Inauguration Day, it is very obvious that no one cares what happens to the people who worked for the campaign or who have loyalty to the president. The swamp is winning the battle,” said one former Trump campaign aide. “And longtime campaign staffers are proving to be the first casualties."
Others say the Trump acolytes have unrealistic expectations and are simply experiencing the hard realities of Washington. Some Cabinet secretaries have complained privately about having employees foisted upon them with little, if any, relevant policy expertise. The agency heads say they should have discretion over key hires in their departments.
Either way, the strife is real.
One collision is taking place at the State Department, where loyalists at the department have been deeply troubled by the actions of career bureaucrats who were installed during Barack Obama’s tenure and of Republicans perceived as cool to Trump. In recent days, Trump veterans have been abuzz over the exit of Julia Haller, who worked as a Northern Virginia field staffer for the campaign and then went on to become a senior adviser at the department.
Two people with direct knowledge of the situation said her departure followed a clash between Haller and senior-level people at Foggy Bottom. (Haller wouldn’t detail any disputes she had and a State Department spokesperson declined to discuss the reasons for her exit.)
Tensions are also rising at the Department of Agriculture, where some Trump backers said they were shocked to learn recently they were being reassigned to other parts of the government. The decision affects 13 people on the department's beachhead team, who began working at the agency on Jan. 20 as Trump’s presidency got underway. The group was assigned to oversee the department as its new leadership took shape.
While the staffers, like those on beachhead teams at other agencies, were never guaranteed employment past the first 90 or 120 days of the administration, many assumed they would be hired on full time.
At the White House, a frustrated senior aide said the administration was not informed of the Agriculture Department reassignments ahead of time. Among those affected is James Epley, who helped to oversee the campaign in South Carolina, where Trump notched a pivotal primary win. (Epley, who moved to Washington a few weeks ago, said he didn’t yet know where he’d be placed but was not bothered. He was not part of the beachhead team.)
Nowhere, however, is the infighting more intense than at EPA. Over the past month, two Trump appointees, David Schnare and David Kreutzer, departed after colliding with top aides to Administrator Scott Pruitt, according to three people familiar with the matter. Both had complained about being marginalized. (Schnare said he left because of disloyalty to Trump among some officials. Kreutzer, who is expected to take a job at The Heritage Foundation, disputed that his exit had anything to do with discord at the agency.)
Trump loyalists at EPA have griped about being kept out of important planning meetings. Several people also said Don Benton, the agency's White House-assigned senior adviser who oversaw Trump’s campaign in Washington state, had been iced out. (Benton wrote in an email that there is "zero tension" between him and Pruitt).
The turf battles aren't only about allegiance to Trump; there's also an ideological component. Climate skeptics who worked on EPA's transition team are deeply suspicious of Pruitt, despite the administrator's conservative bona fides. Some privately complain he’s moving too slowly to implement Trump’s campaign promises, and that Pruitt might be trying to position himself for an eventual Senate run.
The tumult is fueling speculation that more Trump allies will soon leave.
“I think it’s very safe to say members of the team are looking for other places to go,” said one EPA staffer.
One EPA employee dismissed the idea that infighting has overtaken the agency. This person said Schnare and others who’ve criticized Pruitt’s tenure are pushing their own agenda without regard to the complicated and slow-moving rule-making process.
At the Department of Education, meanwhile, staffers are chattering about last week’s resignation of Jerry Ward, who previously ran Trump’s Alaska campaign. Trump supporters have grumbled about Secretary Betsy DeVos’ decision to hire employees who are aligned with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a fierce Trump critic. Ward declined to comment.
Bowdidge, who worked for Trump's campaign in New Hampshire, said Energy Department staffers have taken extraordinary steps to protect themselves since his departure, scrubbing their social media profiles and keeping a close eye on who was listening to their conversations.
"There's a significant amount of mistrust, especially after what was done to me,” Bowdidge said. “There are certain people who won't talk to other people, and why would they?"
He pointed out that other Trump campaign staffers had been the subject of unflattering leaks. Among them: Danny Tiso, a Labor Department appointee, whose academic history has come under scrutiny, and Jonathan Dimock, a NASA staffer whose work background has been put under the microscope.
As the war stories pile up, some originals are beginning to wonder why they followed Trump to Washington at all. Some have become so insecure about their standing that they are regularly calling the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, which oversees administration hiring, to ask about their employment status.
"There are people who moved here and signed a year lease,” said one longtime campaign staffer. “They got nothing for their loyalty to Trump."
"We're pissed off. We're angry," this person said. "There are people who can't even look us in the eye because they know they’re [screwing] us."
For originals, though, it's been a long and frustrating road. Many of them imagined themselves in West Wing jobs after Trump's improbable victory. But, in a conference call with senior Trump aide Rick Dearborn just before Christmas, they were told that White House jobs would be hard to come by. Instead, they were wanted for beachhead teams.
After the call, campaign staffers said they were getting short shrift. They wondered why some people who’d been less than supportive of Trump were getting plum West Wing positions.
Now, as they fight for survival at Cabinet agencies, some are wondering if their days working for the president are numbered.
“A lot of us have lost hope and are looking for another gig,” said one Trump campaign staffer now working at a federal agency. “And that’s the sad part, we’re being pushed aside for people who don’t give a shit about Donald Trump.”
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White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has been removed from an important seat on the National Security Council - a posting that had stirred controversy for placing one of President Donald Trump’s top political hands in a key national security position.
The change represents the first real diminution of authority for Bannon, who has been cast as an all-powerful whisperer to Trump in the administration’s first 75 days, mocked by his critics as “President Bannon.”
In recent weeks, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, has asked searching questions - sometimes for hours - of inside and outside advisers about the White House's performance and complained about Bannon in particular, according to people who have spoken with Kushner. Kushner, a onetime New York Democrat, and Bannon, a hard-right nationalist, have clashed as Kushner has told people that Bannon’s desire to deconstruct the government is hurting the president.
One person familiar with Kushner's thinking says Kushner believes Bannon is more of a problem than Reince Priebus, the chief of staff.
“Big fight is between nationalists and the ‘West Wing Democrats,'” one senior administration official said.
The White House tried to downplay the significance of Bannon’s removal from the NSC - it went unannounced by the press office - depicting him as simply moving on after successfully completing limited tasks.
“It’s not like this is a major shake-up,” said another administration official.
But Bannon’s exit, revealed in a federal register filing and confirmed by multiple White House officials, is perceived to represent a significant long-term increase in authority for H.R. McMaster, Trump’s new national security adviser, who now has greater authority over the council’s agenda without one of Trump’s closest aides watching closely over him.
“McMaster won,” one NSC official said.
Vice President Mike Pence said Bannon's ouster was not a "demotion" and said it was a "very routine" change.
"With H.R Mcaster as our national security adviser and the president's action adding the chairman of the joint chiefs, adding the director of national intelligence, and moving a couple of our senior personnel off the national security council just simply represents a very routine evolution of the national security team around the president," Pence said in an interview with Fox News Wednesday night.
Pence added that both Bannon and Tom Bossert, who serves as Trump's homeland security adviser and whose role was also reduced, continued to be "highly valued members of this administration."
One White House official said Bannon was placed on the NSC to “babysit" Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who resigned in mid-February after misleading Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
This official said Bannon’s role was also to ensure that the NSC was “de-operationalized” following the Obama administration. “That job is done,” the official said.
“It’s not like he’s been in principal committee meetings constantly saying [to McMaster], ‘You can’t do this, you can't do that,’” another of the officials said. “That hasn’t happened.”
Bannon had not been a regular attendee of NSC principals meetings. One person said he attended one meeting; another said he hadn’t attended any.
Some cautioned not to make too much of Bannon’s removal. “I get a sense that people are going, 'Ding-dong, the witch is dead,'” said Eric Edelman, who served as undersecretary of defense for policy in the George W. Bush administration. “The only thing he doesn’t appear to have is a seat at the NSC principals committee, and it’s not clear how important that will be.”
The immediate reading by several longtime NSC officials and experts was that the policy-making body is reverting to a much more traditional structure - with the national security adviser in the driver’s seat and meetings attended by Cabinet heads, top intelligence officials and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who in the Flynn approach was not even designated a regular member, even as Bannon was.
“It really reflects well on H.R. McMaster, who has orchestrated all the key moves behind the scenes in advance of announcing them and gotten their approval,” David Rothkopf, author of two histories of the NSC, said in an interview. “That is a sign of a smart, effective bureaucrat and leader. This restores the traditional structures to the NSC. It is putting in place a professional team of national security advisers. It gives McMaster more authority and restores the roles of the military and intelligence leadership.”
Lawmakers of both parties welcomed the return to a more traditional NSC structure.
“I'd be very pleased that he would not be on the National Security Council,” Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on Capitol Hill. “My hope is that he would have no role in government at all and would be completely out.”
Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) said downgrading Bannon was a "good move" - and he praised the reinstatement of the Joint Chiefs chairman as a permanent member of the security council.
"The chairman of the Joint Chiefs should be in a permanent position, so I think it's the right thing to do, but it's a decision of the president's," McCain said. "I said at the time that I didn't think a political adviser should be a member of that body because it's never been, so I think it's the right thing to do."
And Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), former chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, tweeted, “Steve Bannon's removal from National Security Council is welcome news.”
The removal of Bannon also raised questions of whether more changes are in the works, in particular the fate of K.T. McFarland, who was brought in as Flynn’s deputy and remains the No. 2 at the NSC.
"Trump loves [McFarland], so I'm not sure McMaster can fire her," an NSC official said.
One NSC source said no additional staffing changes are planned to the agency in the near term, saying that NSC intelligence director Ezra Cohen-Watnick would remain in that post. McMaster had tried to re-assign Cohen-Watnick to a different position last month but was overruled by Trump after Bannon and Kushner intervened.
Cohen-Watnick subsequently became a key player in the controversy over leaked intelligence when it was revealed that he and another White House aide provided House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) with evidence reportedly showing that communications from Trump’s team were intercepted in foreign surveillance by U.S. intelligence.
In addition to Bannon, one other change was made Wednesday. Thomas Bossert, an assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, held co-equal status with Flynn when he was national security adviser. He is now subordinate to McMaster, in another sign of the former general’s empowered role in the Trump White House.
The changes were not welcomed among some Trump loyalists.
Flynn’s son, Michael Flynn Jr., tweeted that “Flynn/Bannon most loyal to DJT (both out at NSC),” using the president’s initials, and he complained that McMaster “wont say ‘Radical Islam.’”
“Is WH serious abt defeating our enemy?” Flynn Jr. wrote.
politee koh
Civil war rages throughout Trump administration
A civil war between Donald Trump loyalists and establishment-minded Republicans is escalating throughout the federal government - and increasingly the president’s allies are losing.
From the State Department to the Environmental Protection Agency, a sharp dividing line has formed: Cabinet secretaries and their handpicked teams of GOP veterans are rushing to take power as Trump campaign staffers - "originals,” as they call themselves - gripe that they’re being pushed aside.
In over a dozen interviews, the originals, many of whom volunteered to work for candidate Trump when few others were willing to do so, complained that they'd been shut out of meetings and targeted with career-destroying leaks. In recent weeks, a number of longtime Trump supporters have abruptly quit, saying they felt the administration had been overtaken by the same establishment they worked to defeat.
The backbiting is further paralyzing federal agencies, which have been hamstrung by slow hiring, disorganization and an overall lack of direction since Trump’s inauguration. Many of the Trump stalwarts were installed at the agencies during the transition to help them prepare for the presidency, part of so-called beachhead teams.
"You're always watching your back,” said Sid Bowdidge, a Trump campaign staffer who quit his Energy Department job after news reports that he made anti-Muslim slurs on social media, stories that he blamed on leaks by rival co-workers. “It doesn't bode well for a cohesive team to be successful toward a common goal. How can you when people are looking over their shoulder to see if they have a knife in their back?"
“As we get further away from Inauguration Day, it is very obvious that no one cares what happens to the people who worked for the campaign or who have loyalty to the president. The swamp is winning the battle,” said one former Trump campaign aide. “And longtime campaign staffers are proving to be the first casualties."
Others say the Trump acolytes have unrealistic expectations and are simply experiencing the hard realities of Washington. Some Cabinet secretaries have complained privately about having employees foisted upon them with little, if any, relevant policy expertise. The agency heads say they should have discretion over key hires in their departments.
Either way, the strife is real.
One collision is taking place at the State Department, where loyalists at the department have been deeply troubled by the actions of career bureaucrats who were installed during Barack Obama’s tenure and of Republicans perceived as cool to Trump. In recent days, Trump veterans have been abuzz over the exit of Julia Haller, who worked as a Northern Virginia field staffer for the campaign and then went on to become a senior adviser at the department.
Two people with direct knowledge of the situation said her departure followed a clash between Haller and senior-level people at Foggy Bottom. (Haller wouldn’t detail any disputes she had and a State Department spokesperson declined to discuss the reasons for her exit.)
Tensions are also rising at the Department of Agriculture, where some Trump backers said they were shocked to learn recently they were being reassigned to other parts of the government. The decision affects 13 people on the department's beachhead team, who began working at the agency on Jan. 20 as Trump’s presidency got underway. The group was assigned to oversee the department as its new leadership took shape.
While the staffers, like those on beachhead teams at other agencies, were never guaranteed employment past the first 90 or 120 days of the administration, many assumed they would be hired on full time.
At the White House, a frustrated senior aide said the administration was not informed of the Agriculture Department reassignments ahead of time. Among those affected is James Epley, who helped to oversee the campaign in South Carolina, where Trump notched a pivotal primary win. (Epley, who moved to Washington a few weeks ago, said he didn’t yet know where he’d be placed but was not bothered. He was not part of the beachhead team.)
Nowhere, however, is the infighting more intense than at EPA. Over the past month, two Trump appointees, David Schnare and David Kreutzer, departed after colliding with top aides to Administrator Scott Pruitt, according to three people familiar with the matter. Both had complained about being marginalized. (Schnare said he left because of disloyalty to Trump among some officials. Kreutzer, who is expected to take a job at The Heritage Foundation, disputed that his exit had anything to do with discord at the agency.)
Trump loyalists at EPA have griped about being kept out of important planning meetings. Several people also said Don Benton, the agency's White House-assigned senior adviser who oversaw Trump’s campaign in Washington state, had been iced out. (Benton wrote in an email that there is "zero tension" between him and Pruitt).
The turf battles aren't only about allegiance to Trump; there's also an ideological component. Climate skeptics who worked on EPA's transition team are deeply suspicious of Pruitt, despite the administrator's conservative bona fides. Some privately complain he’s moving too slowly to implement Trump’s campaign promises, and that Pruitt might be trying to position himself for an eventual Senate run.
The tumult is fueling speculation that more Trump allies will soon leave.
“I think it’s very safe to say members of the team are looking for other places to go,” said one EPA staffer.
One EPA employee dismissed the idea that infighting has overtaken the agency. This person said Schnare and others who’ve criticized Pruitt’s tenure are pushing their own agenda without regard to the complicated and slow-moving rule-making process.
At the Department of Education, meanwhile, staffers are chattering about last week’s resignation of Jerry Ward, who previously ran Trump’s Alaska campaign. Trump supporters have grumbled about Secretary Betsy DeVos’ decision to hire employees who are aligned with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a fierce Trump critic. Ward declined to comment.
Bowdidge, who worked for Trump's campaign in New Hampshire, said Energy Department staffers have taken extraordinary steps to protect themselves since his departure, scrubbing their social media profiles and keeping a close eye on who was listening to their conversations.
"There's a significant amount of mistrust, especially after what was done to me,” Bowdidge said. “There are certain people who won't talk to other people, and why would they?"
He pointed out that other Trump campaign staffers had been the subject of unflattering leaks. Among them: Danny Tiso, a Labor Department appointee, whose academic history has come under scrutiny, and Jonathan Dimock, a NASA staffer whose work background has been put under the microscope.
As the war stories pile up, some originals are beginning to wonder why they followed Trump to Washington at all. Some have become so insecure about their standing that they are regularly calling the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, which oversees administration hiring, to ask about their employment status.
"There are people who moved here and signed a year lease,” said one longtime campaign staffer. “They got nothing for their loyalty to Trump."
"We're pissed off. We're angry," this person said. "There are people who can't even look us in the eye because they know they’re [screwing] us."
For originals, though, it's been a long and frustrating road. Many of them imagined themselves in West Wing jobs after Trump's improbable victory. But, in a conference call with senior Trump aide Rick Dearborn just before Christmas, they were told that White House jobs would be hard to come by. Instead, they were wanted for beachhead teams.
After the call, campaign staffers said they were getting short shrift. They wondered why some people who’d been less than supportive of Trump were getting plum West Wing positions.
Now, as they fight for survival at Cabinet agencies, some are wondering if their days working for the president are numbered.
“A lot of us have lost hope and are looking for another gig,” said one Trump campaign staffer now working at a federal agency. “And that’s the sad part, we’re being pushed aside for people who don’t give a shit about Donald Trump.”
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