National-security aide reportedly to be ambassador

WASHINGTON — A former Fox News commentator appointed by President Donald Trump as deputy national security adviser is expected to leave that post soon and might be nominated to be the U.S. ambassador to Singapore, according to officials briefed on the matter.

K.T. McFarland’s departure had been seen as likely since the forced resignation of Michael Flynn, the retired three-star general who was Trump’s first national security adviser. Flynn’s successor, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, has been moving to put a more traditionally professional stamp on the operations of the National Security council.

CNN reported on April 1 that McFarland was being offered the diplomatic post in Singapore, and Bloomberg News reported Sunday that she had been asked to step down.

McFarland’s style had grated against some of the professional staff members on the National Security Council, which sees itself as apolitical. For example, while addressing the staff at a meeting after Flynn’s ouster, McFarland noted that she was wearing shoes from Ivanka Trump’s brand, according to an official who was present.

At an earlier meeting about two weeks into the administration, McFarland, 65, invoked Trump’s campaign slogan, telling the assembled group of career staff members, most of whom had been in the same roles during the Obama administration, that they need to “make America great again.”

McFarland worked as an aide on the National Security Council in the Nixon and Ford administrations.

She later was a Pentagon speechwriter and spokeswoman in the Reagan administration.