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White House slashes National Security Council staffing

No more leaks of Trump phone conversations: Under the leadership of National Security Adviser Robert C. O’Brien,the White House is reducing the staffing of the National Security Council, returning it to numbers similar to what it was prior to the Obama administration.

Under President Obama, the NSC staff mushroomed to as many as 450 people. Mr. O’Brien plans to cut the staff to fewer than 120 policy officials by early next year. The downsizing will be carried out by consolidating positions and returning officials to agencies and departments such as the CIA, the State and Defense departments and the military.

Mr. O’Brien noted that the NSC had a policymaking staff of 12 in 1962 when President Kennedy faced down the Soviet Union during the Cuban missile crisis. During the 2000s and the George W. Bush administration, the number of NSC staff members increased sharply to support the three-front conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terrorism.

However, it was during the Obama administration that the NSC was transformed into a major policymaking agency seeking to duplicate the functions of the State and Defense departments within the White House. “The NSC staff became bloated during the prior administration,” Mr. O’Brien said. “The NSC is a coordinating body. I am trying to get us back to a lean and efficient staff that can get the job done, can coordinate with our interagency partners, and make sure the president receives the best advice he needs to make the decisions necessary to keep the American people safe.”

Though unstated by O’Brien, a side benefit of these cutbacks is that it will remove Obama holdovers from the NSC, many of whom have been implicated or even admitted to leaking the contents of several of Trump’s private phone conversations with foreign leaders.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

4 comments

  • David M. Cook

    While we‘re at it, why not cut the budgets of the FBI, CIA, & the NSA by 30% or more? These agencies have to much time on their hands! 19 vehicles & 28 people to apprehend a guy who was going to be released? Folks sitting around planning how to depose a elected president? What a way to spend the public‘s money! I say cut and cut some more! These people need to be hit where it hurts!

  • David M. Cook

    Arrrggg… Stupid flip phone keyboard! Too much time on their hands! Too many socialists! Too much money wasted! I‘m done.

  • David M. Cook – ‘Don’t Get Mad, Get Even’.

    Live like an American. Hard these days, I know. Be internally motivated. It’s an amazing Universe. ‘Veni, Vidi, Vici’ and all.

  • Calvin Dodge

    “why not cut the budgets of the FBI, CIA, & the NSA by 30% or more?”

    Given that they’re partisan and corrupt, appear to believe that they set policy (rather than implementing it), and are worse than useless (lawbreakers in the agencies get a pass as long as their crimes were in aid of the party of ever-bigger government) I’d be happy to cut their budgets by 100%.

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