Another staff member quits Security Council

WASHINGTON — Another high-ranking National Security Council staff member is leaving the White House as new National Security Adviser John Bolton works to build his team.

Nadia Schadlow tendered her resignation in a letter Tuesday. It’s effective April 27.

The deputy national security adviser for strategy was a confidante of ex-National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and oversaw the president’s first national security strategy document. McMaster was fired after a rocky relationship with President Donald Trump, who tweeted March 22 that he was replacing McMaster with Bolton.

White House spokesman Raj Shah said the administration thanks Schadlow for “her service and leadership,” adding, “We wish Nadia and her family the best.”

She is one of a handful of high-level staff members who’ve chosen to leave or been pushed out since Bolton’s appointment. They include spokesman Michael Anton and Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert. More departures are expected in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News that Trump personally ordered the Department of Justice to hire a former White House official who departed amid an uproar over the release of intelligence material to a member of Congress.

Ezra Cohen-Watnick, who was forced out of the National Security Council last year, will advise Attorney General Jeff Sessions on national security matters. He left the White House in August for a job at Oracle Corp. over reports that he had shown House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes classified documents.

The material was said to reveal that members of President Barack Obama’s administration had sought the identities of Trump campaign officials and associates inadvertently caught on government intercepts in a process known as “unmasking.” Nunes then disclosed that information publicly in an attempt to bolster Trump’s unsubstantiated allegation that Obama had wiretapped him.

Cohen-Watnick’s attorney, Mark Zaid, said reports of his involvement in the Nunes incident were erroneous. While Cohen-Watnick was working on unmasking issues at the National Security Council, Zaid said in an interview, “he never showed the documents to Nunes. He never met with Nunes. He had nothing to do with Nunes.”

Zaid said Cohen-Watnick was not fired from the White House.