Scramble to find top national security aide
President Donald Trump, scrambling to find a new top security aide after firing his first one and being spurned by another candidate, said yesterday he has four people under consideration for the job, including acting national security adviser Keith Kellogg.
Trump ousted Michael Flynn on Monday and on Thursday retired Vice Admiral Robert Harward turned down the Republican president’s offer to replace Flynn.
Trump said in a post on Twitter yesterday he was weighing four potential candidates for national security adviser. “General Keith Kellogg, who I have known for a long time, is very much in play for NSA — as are three others,” he said without naming the other candidates.
Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general who currently is chief of staff of the White House National Security Council, stepped into the national security adviser role on an acting basis after Flynn’s firing.
Retired General David Petraeus, who held key command posts in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and served as CIA director under Barack Obama, also had been mentioned by a White House official as a replacement for Flynn earlier. NBC News reported two others were also under consideration: General James Jones, former supreme allied commander in Europe who served as national security adviser to Obama from 2009 to 2010; and General Keith Alexander, former US. National Security Agency chief.