President Trump has ordered a significant reduction of staff at the National Security Council, according to Bloomberg, citing “five people familiar with the plans.” The cuts were described as part of a White House initiative to streamline the agency under new National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien.
Two of the people familiar with the decision to shrink the NSC insisted it was largely rooted in both the transition to O’Brien’s leadership as well as Trump’s desire to increase efficiency at the agency, which grew under former President Barack Obama. About 310 people currently work at the NSC. –Bloomberg
The cutbacks will primarily be carried out from attrition, “as staffers return from assignments at the NSC to their home agencies,” according to the report. Many of the council’s employees are career government employees who came from the State Department, Pentagon and intelligence agencies.
Members of Congress have periodically sought to reduce the size of the NSC in recent years. Some lawmakers have threatened to make the national security adviser a Senate-confirmed position if the administration didn’t reduce the number of people working at the president’s foreign policy shop. –Bloomberg
Bloomberg links the decision to a whistleblower complaint over Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, however there is no evidence to suggest that’s true.
According to the New York Times, the whistleblower is a CIA officer who previously worked at the White House. Meanwhile, a second whistleblower is reportedly waiting in the wings, ready to corroborate the original whistleblower’s allegations that President Trump abused his office when he asked that Ukraine investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son for corruption (perhaps this is all part of what Chuck Schumer described as the intelligence community having ‘six ways from Sunday‘ to get back at someone).
Last month, O’Brien took over the NSC after his predecessor, John Bolton, was fired following high-profile disputes with Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo over North Korea and Afghanistan – part of which was a canceled meeting with Taliban leaders.
Some in the White House believed the NSC was leaking information that would benefit Bolton, according to the report.
Earlier this week, O’Brien appointed Alex Gray, formerly the National Security Council’s Oceania and Indo-Pacific security director, to be a senior adviser, according to three people familiar with the plan.
Gray’s appointment follows that of Matt Pottinger, who is now deputy national security adviser after serving previously as the NSC’s senior director for Asia. –Bloomberg
A former journalist and Marine who joined Trump’s NSC in 2017, Pottinger later became senior director for Asia, and has been intimately involved in talks with North Korea regarding its weapons program. He was instrumental in arranging for meetings between Trump and leader Kim Jong Un.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
I truly hope it is an opening gurgle in the draining of the swamp. However, it is my belief that any civil serpent (new term for bureaucrats) reduction in force is GOOD reduction, so I will take what we can get. b.b.b.b.b.b.baby!
And hope, that we ain’t seen nuthin’ yet!
BTO lately?
A nice way of saying “you’re fired”?
I hope.so…there are so many redundancies in security and investigating services
..a few can be let go!
All those leaks. BS. A Dysfunctional group of haters doing everything to bring the current system down. We are living with socialist/communist who are using the rules for radicals playbook.
In no way shape or form is this swamp draining.
Even if it were, this token is the equivalent of a fart in a tornado.
There is no swamp draining. What are you people fucking stupid? Seriously, 32 months in office, and as one supposed swamp creature leaves, is replaced with another, and you call that “draining a swamp”?
Oh let me guess, I am another “Orange man bad” troll. Bull fucking shit! Name one cocksucking promise this orange cocksucker has kept while in his cocksucking 32 months in office?
He has triggered you liberals…. ^
I don’t think it qualifies as draining the swamp when you fire people you hired in the first place.
NSC is loaded with national level intel analysts.
If we go back to the Clinton Administration you’ll find a large reorganization was done at CIA and their hiring practices changed. On of my former co-workers had family within said organization and he relayed some interesting facts about the evaluation of prospective recruits as we discussed the “sorting process” various government agencies resorted to for hiring.
Fast forward 10 years to 2008 and ask yourself “why” Hillary Clinton would ask for a Cabinet post at Department of State. I knew exactly why, because CIA is under the purview of State Department. It’s a prime way to access national level intelligence, network, and influence personal interests as Secretary of State.
Now you know why the Deep State has turned into a bunch of shit-flinging monkeys against Trump and the why the intel community hates him.
And, bringing that unique Clinton “twist” to the post, she used it to sell information, uranium deposits and anything else she could steal while accepting “donations” to the Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative from whoever wanted a favor. And, just on the side, trafficking Haitian orphans and other children for sex slavery to whichever degenerates wanted them, as well.
Satan will be truly despondent when this ancient witch dies; he had no more loyal soldier, disciple and recruiter to his cause than Hillary, and she will be impossible to replace.