Trump turns to Bolton
Former U.N. ambassador to help shape policy positions on N. Korea, Iran
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Thursday he would replace national security adviser H.R. Mcmaster with former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, a foreign policy hawk entering a White House facing key decisions on Iran and North Korea.
After weeks of speculation about Mcmaster’s future, Trump and the three-star general put a positive face on the departure.
Trump tweeted Thursday that Mcmaster had done “an outstanding job & will always remain my friend.” He said Bolton will take over April 9 as his third national security adviser in just over a year.
The White House has said the president is seeking to put new foreign policy leaders in place ahead of a not-yet-scheduled meeting
NSA
with North Korean leader Kim Jung Un. Bolton is likely to add a hard-line influence to those talks, as well as deliberations over whether to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal.
Bolton has been a force in Republican foreign policy circles for decades. He has served in the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, and served as a Bush lawyer during the 2000 Florida recount.
A strong supporter of the Iraq War and an advocate for aggressive use of American power, Bolton was unable to win Senate confirmation after his nomination to the U.N. post alienated many Democrats and even some Republicans. He resigned after serving 17 months as a Bush “recess appointment,” which allowed him to hold the job on a temporary basis without Senate confirmation.
The role of national security adviser does not require Senate confirmation.
Bolton met with Trump and Chief of Staff John Kelly in early March to discuss North Korea and Iran. He was spotted entering the West Wing earlier Thursday.
The White House said Thursday that Mcmaster’s exit had been under discussion for some time and stressed it was not due to any one incident, including this week’s leak about Trump’s recent phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Mcmaster had briefed Trump before the Putin call — and his team drafted all-caps instructions telling Trump not to congratulate the Russian leader on his re-election victory. Trump did it anyway.
An internal investigation into the leak is underway, said a White House official who — like others interviewed about the announcement and the White House shakeup — demanded anonymity to discuss internal matters.
In a statement released by the White House, Mcmaster said he would be requesting retirement from the U.S. Army effective this summer, adding that afterward he “will leave public service.”
Officials said the president still has genuine respect for Mcmaster. He had been under consideration for a fourth star, and White House officials hoped it would provide a graceful exit from the West Wing for the longtime soldier. No suitable postings had been identified, leaving Mcmaster — long an iconoclast among the top brass — with no choice but retirement.
Mcmaster had told confidants he would leave the post if at any point he lost credibility on the international stage, according to three White House officials. The feverish speculation about an impending exit sped up the decision for him to depart, the officials said, in part because Mcmaster believed foreign partners were beginning to doubt his influence.
The military strategist joined the Trump administration in February 2017.
Mcmaster was brought in after Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was dismissed after less than a month in office.
White House officials said he was ousted because he did not tell top advisers, including Vice President Mike Pence, about the full extent of his contacts with Russian officials.