Gutting of Staff at the NSC Continues

In the wake of his acquittal, which resulted in the firings of the likes of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and Ambassador Sondland  – the gutting of the supposedly “deep state” staff at the National Security Council (NSC) will continue – so says an well-known NSC expert.

Dr. John Gans said recently in The New York Times, that the removal of Vindman is only the latest step of a much larger and ongoing effort by the Trump administration to tear down the council and reduce it to something that is weaker, less effective, and more beholden to the personal whims of the president.

“The dismissal is just one part of a campaign by the national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, to ‘trumpify’ one of the most powerful and important institutions in government,” wrote Gans. “Over the last six months, while impeachment dominated the news, Mr. O’Brien undertook the first restructuring of the council in a generation. He cut 60 to 70 positions, about a third of the staff, many of them career professionals. He also directed that the National Security Council focus less on transnational issues like global economics and nonproliferation, and more on bilateral and geographic priorities. In all, Mr. O’Brien’s ‘trumpification’ of the staff will hamper the United States’ ability to meet the world’s challenges, and hamstring the next president.”

So expect Trump’s purge of his enemies in the NSC to continue. CNN says that some people with “knowledge of the impending change” previously said once President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial had concluded, O’Brien was expected to oust about a dozen or so officials as part of an effort to streamline the NSC, which O’Brien alleges has become too large.

“So it’s bloated. We’re going to bring it back to a size that’s manageable and efficient. And look, the folks who are there, they really need to want to serve the President,” O’Brien told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham earlier this week.

“What I said when I came to the NSC is that I would drastically downsize it,” he added.

O’Brien said the council had “ballooned up” to 236 policy professionals in the Obama administration from about 100 during the Bush administration.

“Another week or two, I think we’ll have met our goal,” he said.

The NSC coordinates policy options on national security, foreign policy and military issues for the White House.

Soon after O’Brien was named to the top position, he told the White House in October he wanted to slash the NSC staff by about half by early 2020.

Related posts

13 Thoughts to “Gutting of Staff at the NSC Continues”

  1. Terry Coons

    Have you never heard of the statement ” to many Cooks, spoil the broth “, that is exactly what we have in ,the NSC. The President and Mr. O’Brien are on the right track. Keep up the great work, President Trump and Mr. O’Brien !

  2. Kathy

    WONDERFUL! Should streamline every part of the government. When I was there in the 80’s people did not work, just sat at their desks, talking, eating and not working. Such a waste of taxpayers money.

    The people in charge back then and before TRUMP never did anything for the people. All they did is take money from foreign lands, steal gold and kill & eat children. Their time is over!

    TRUMP is protected otherwise they would have killed him by now. They are running scared

  3. This is a true commitment to work on downsizing government. A promise many presidential candidates have made but never followed up on. In fact, many have grown government, like Obozo!GO TRUMP GO!!!! MAGA!!!!KAG!!!!

  4. Lloyd

    Another Trump goal met. Cutting the budget. Sounds good to me.

  5. Folks, the NSC staff was bloated early in the obama administration, and just before he took a well deserved (well deserved by the American people) extended vacation, he packed it even more. He loaded it up with State Department Pukes) and a few CIA toads under state department cover), to ensure it would be top heavy with people who thought they were smarter than all the rest of us. Stick in a few Vindmann’s with pretensions of being State department pukes, and you had an anchor that would weigh down Trump’s foreign policy. Trump followed earlier precedent of changing all the politically appointed ambassadors, and at least for the time kept the career State department people. He did not realize that eight years of Obama had politicized the State Department as much as DOJ, DOD (staff) and FBI/CIA, and many of the so-called non-political career State ambassadors (e.g. Marie ivanovich) were actually psycophants of Obama, and continued pushing obama’s agenda after Trump was inaugurated. The half that O’brien wants to cut from the NSC staff is a good start, but they should be able to do their job with about 25-30% of what they had when Trump took Office. But Trump needs to follow up at DOJ and CIA, and clean house at all of these cesspools.

  6. This is an ongoing process tp remove Obama/mooslime terrorist supporters form the NSC, It is time to replace them with people who are only interested in the security of the US. The people who are being replaced are noting

  7. Laura Wagner

    What the Vindmans didn’t see coming was that they are still military and as such need to follow the chain of command of which Trump is the Commander in Chief. By failing to follow his orders, they were lucky only to be shifted out of the NSC instead of out of the military entirely. By this article, they were due to go anyway.

    Of course, the House is ceasing on their removal and is again braying “IMPEACHMENT!” The idiots…

  8. Roger L. Clark

    It’s about time, should have been started sooner!!

  9. Matthew Hurt

    Good it’s about time. When he is reelected I am hopeful he will truly drain the swamp!

  10. I am glad they are downsizing this part of the government. Many other areas in government should be downsized, also. The government is way too bloated with people, who really have no purpose to be there.This is one of the reasons the budget is set so high,There are literally hundreds of thousands of unnecessary employees in the Federal Government!We should not be paying all these people to do nothing except be at the whim of higher-ups,so they can do practically nothing for the people of America,or the country!

  11. Michael Lyons

    This is a necessity in securing the country as a republic….CONTINUE TO DRAIN THE SWAMP! Help make our country a viable nation in which we truly are citizen directed…WE THE PEOPLE!

  12. PHILLIP

    And so it should be….

  13. AMERICANS WE HAVE TO TAKE BACK OUR AMERICA FROM THE EVIL CRIMINAL ACTS OF DEMOCRATS………………………..TO SOLVE AMERICAS PROBLEMS MAKE THIS CHOICE WE THE PEOPLE’ HAVE THE POWER OF OUR VOICES AND OUR VOTES, TO VOTE OUT THE ENTIRE LYING,CORRUPT, TREASONOUS DEMOCRAT PARTY COME NOV 2020, VOTE TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN AND TO END ALL CORRUPTIONS IN WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT

Comments are closed.