TRUMP TAKES BANNON OFF NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
Administration’s intel chiefs regain seats on powerful committee
President Trump’s decision to remove Steve Bannon from the National Security Council is not evidence of a diminished role for the controversial chief political strategist, White House officials say.
A senior White House official said that Bannon, who attended only one meeting of the council, was originally given the post as a check on former national security adviser Michael Flynn. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel matter. Flynn was fired in February after misleading Vice President Pence about the substance of his discussions with the Russian ambassador.
Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, the new national security adviser, will be given more control over the council and its agenda. Trump’s decision to reorganize the principals committee came at McMaster’s urging, the official said. The move also restores the director of national intelligence, CIA director, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to full participation on the council’s principals committee, the panel on which Bannon previously sat.
Administration officials said Bannon and others believe the Obama team “operationalized” the NSC, performing too many day- to- day operations of the national security apparatus. They want to return the council to its more traditional role of gathering and providing strategic advice to the president.
Bannon said in a statement Wednesday that previous national security adviser “Susan Rice operationalized the NSC during the last administration so I was put on NSC to ensure it was ‘ deoperationalized.’ General McMaster has NSC back to its proper function.”
In an interview with Fox News, Pence said the move was not a demotion for Bannon. Instead it was “just a natural evolution to ensure the National Security Council is organized in a way that best serves the president in resolving and making those difficult decisions,” Pence said.
Trump’s decision in January to include Bannon in National Security Council deliberations was controversial. Although he served as a junior officer in the Navy Reserve, Bannon had little national security experience. He came to the White House via the Trump campaign and, before that, was the executive chairman of Breitbart News, a website that often gave voice to his conservative, nationalistic ideas on trade and immigration.
The Bannon move has nothing to do with Syria or any particular policy, the White House official said. Instead it reflects McMaster’s desire to organize the NSC the way he wants it — something Trump promised when McMaster agreed to replace Flynn.
Democrats seized on the removal of Bannon, who has been a frequent target of their criticism. Rep. Barbara Lee, D- Calif., said Trump deserves no credit for removing him. “His twisted ideology shouldn’t have been welcomed in the first place,” she tweeted.
Rep. Ted Lieu, D- Calif., also weighed in on Twitter, noting Bannon’s lack of national security experience in the first place. “Why all this rationality now?” Lieu asked about the removal.
The move also establishes the director of the CIA as a full member of the powerful principals committee and adds him to the NSC, where he had been excluded in the Jan. 27 memorandum.
“The Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as statutory advisers to the NSC, shall also be regular attendees, as will the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency,” the new memorandum states.
“His twisted ideology shouldn’t have been welcomed in the first place.”
Rep. Barbara Lee, D- Calif., in a tweet Wednesday