Trump security adviser resigns
Sources say he was forced out as Bolton started this week
WASHINGTON — White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert is leaving the Trump administration, another departure during what has been a chaotic few months of personnel changes.
Bossert, a favorite of chief of staff John Kelly, is leaving one day after national security adviser John Bolton began the job. Bossert was believed to be on shaky footing in the Bolton era and he resigned two days after Michael Anton, the National Security Council spokesman, also quit.
Bossert’s resignation was requested by Bolton, according to two people familiar with the situation who requested anonymity to discuss internal personnel issues.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders declined to comment on whether Bossert was pushed out.
“I’m not going to get into specific details about the ongoings of personnel. But I can tell you that he resigned,” she told reporters Tuesday. “The president feels he’s done a great job and wishes him the best as he moves forward.”
Bossert joins a growing list of officials who have left the administration in recent months as the historically high staff turnover rate continues under President Donald Trump.
So far this year, the president has changed his secretary of state, national security adviser, veterans affairs secretary, CIA director, chief economic adviser, staff secretary, communications director and members of his legal team.
Bossert and former national security adviser H.R. McMaster feuded bitterly throughout their tenure in the White House in meetings that on occasion devolved into screaming, according to people familiar with their relationship who requested anonymity to discuss the situation. McMaster and others in the White House were particularly frustrated that Bossert was slow to move forward with a strategy to both defend the United States and punish Russia for its efforts to undermine the U.S. elections.
In late February, Adm. Michael Rogers, the departing head of the National Security Agency, suggested in congressional testimony that he did not have the authority he required from the White House to combat Russian cyberattacks. “[Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin has clearly come to the conclusion that there’s little price to pay and that therefore ‘I can continue this activity,’ ” said Rogers, who is set to retire in April. “Clearly what we have done hasn’t been enough.”
Inside the White House, many blamed Bossert for those shortcomings. “He’s a foot dragger on everything,” said a former senior U.S. official who worked with Bossert in the White House. “But that’s also how he hung on for a while in this crazy White House.”
Bossert has publicly taken issue with assertions that the Trump administration has not imposed sufficient costs on Russia.
“We are deterring through increased defenses, we are deterring through punitive measures that impose costs,” he said Sunday while speaking at the CipherBrief national security conference held in Sea Island, Ga. “We are applying economic diplomatic, military penalties to our adversaries, and in some cases, to our friends that are behaving poorly.”
He also discounted any potential impact of Russian manipulation of social media in the 2016 election.
“I frankly have a whole lot more confidence that no voter in this country was influenced by those ads,” he said. “I’m not forgiving the meddling in the slightest; it’s galling.”
Beyond Russia, there was widespread frustration in the White House that Bossert’s office had failed to produce formal strategies to deal with counterterrorism and cyberactivities.