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Craig Deare, whom Trump appointed a month ago to head the National Security Council's Western Hemisphere division, was on Friday escorted out of the Executive Office Building, where he worked in Washington. A senior White House official confirmed that Deare is no longer working at the NSC and has returned to the position he previously held at the National Defense University. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an incident not otherwise made public, and provided no further details. But current and former administration officials say Deare's termination was linked to remarks he made Thursday at a private...

David Petraeus will not be replacing Michael Flynn as Donald Trump's next national security adviser. Trump ousted Flynn on Monday in a controversy over the retired lieutenant general's contacts with Russia. Petraeus, a retired general and former CIA director, expressed concern about Trump's reluctance to grant the new adviser full discretion over policy and staffing. On Friday, Petraeus told the Munich Security Conference: 'Whoever it is that would agree to take that position certainly should do so with some very, very significant assurances that he or she would have authorities over the personnel of the organization. 'That there would be...

Donald Trump promised during the campaign to get tough on radical Islamic terror groups as well as force Iran to renegotiate terms on Barack Obama’s nuclear deal. The next executive orders from the president may address both pledges — and create more controversy. According to Reuters, Trump will designate the entire Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), expanding current sanctions applied at the moment to only its Quds Force: A designation of the entire IRGC as a terrorist group would potentially have much broader implications, including for the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated between Iran and...

Petraeus would be a disaster — a stalwart of the old establishment in an administration that said it would “drain the swamp.” In May 2016, he published what was essentially an anti Trump screed, saying that proposals to restrict immigration from Muslim countries that are hotspots of jihad terror shouldn’t even be made, so as to avoid offending Muslims. He was in favor of using al Qaeda jihadis to defeat the Islamic State, which would give us a region full of al-Qaeda jihadis with American weapons and materiel who hate the United States and want to destroy it. (This is...

The turnover in the National Security Council is far from over, as more shuffling is expected in the wake of the resignation of the agency’s top boss, Michael Flynn, according to a report. KT McFarland — Flynn’s deputy, a former Republican Senate candidate in New York and former Fox News commentator — is not expected to remain in her perch as the No. 2 on the NSC, the New York Times reports. But it’s not clear whether McFarland will leave the administration entirely.

One individual who should be at the top of Trump's list as a replacement for Mike Flynn, is former Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, currently Executive Vice President at Family Research Council. Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin on Fox News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCbkaxC-Hj8Wikipedia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCbkaxC-Hj8

Vice Adm. Bob Harward is one name that has come up to replace Flynn as national security adviser, and the leading candidate to get the job, a senior official told Fox News. Harward is a U.S. Navy SEAL, but also has a previous relationship with Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Harward was the deputy commander of the U.S. Central Command under Mattis and was also the deputy commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command. He also served on the National Security Council for President George W. Bush and commissioned the National Counter Terrorism Center. White House sources described Harward as the...

...and I don't think Donald Trump should let them. Here's why... High fives abound at the Washington Post Bureau in DC.  They got the scalp of a man that they had been after for months.  General Michael Flynn has resigned as head of Trump's National Security Committee. A brief summary: The Washington Post reported on February 9, 2017 that General Flynn discussed with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak sanctions imposed on Russia on December 29, 2016 by the Obama Administration.   The sanctions were imposed for the alleged Russian hacking of the DNC and John Podesta emails, which while authentic, contained negative content that the Democrats and...

President Donald Trump pointed the finger at Obama administration holdovers at the White House and National Security Council for leaking information about private phone conversations he had with leaders of Australia and Mexico. “It’s a disgrace that they leaked because it’s very much against our country,” Trump told Fox News Sunday, accusing “Obama people” in civil service positions for the leaks. “It’s a very dangerous thing for this country,” he added noting that these individuals were still being sought out and replaced. Trump described the media stories of what seemed to be contentious interactions between him and the two foreign...

My friend Monica Crowley was the subject of a major hit job by CNN a few weeks back. She is a serious scholar, but she was portrayed as a serial plagiarist who never had an original idea in her head. The emotional toll of the uproar caused her to withdraw from her appointment by President Trump to be the senior director of communications at the National Security Council. It is the country’s loss. Over the last two decades, Monica has been one of the most effective commentators on the national scene regarding the geopolitical challenges confronting the United States, and...

Over the weekend, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were given extraordinary access to President Trump and his foreign policy team. On today’s Morning Joe, they gave their takeaways from their interview of the president and a number of his senior advisors. Scarborough painted a picture of White House staffers in a battle with the senior foreign policy team. Scarborough singled out Stephen Miller, saying “you’ve got a very young person in the White House on a power trip thinking that you can just write executive orders and tell all of your cabinet agencies to go to hell.” View the video...

It didn’t take long for the old administration to attack the new administration. Former national security advisor Susan Rice ignited a feud Sunday with the Trump White House by ripping the recent reshuffling of the National Security Council as “stone cold crazy.” White House spokesman Sean Spicer fired back by calling Ms. Rice’s comments “clearly inappropriate language from a former ambassador” and took a swipe at the Obama administration’s track record on national security. “And when you talk about the missteps made by the last administration, with all due respect, I think Ambassador Rice might want to wait and see...

Former Breitbart executive and current White House chief strategist Steve Bannon will be able sit in on any National Security Council or Homeland Security Council meeting thanks to an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Saturday.President Trump’s executive order reorganized the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council. The National Security Council was founded in 1947 and is a forum where top officials meet to discuss matters of national security and foreign policy.Bannon is not only invited to every attend every NSC and HSC meeting now, but also is designated as a regular attendee to the NSC Principals Committee. This...

President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for national security adviser, among the most important jobs in the still-forming Trump administration, has said some pretty incendiary things on the Internet. Before being tapped to advise Trump on national security issues, retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn was an intelligence officer and head of the Defense Intelligence Agency under President Obama until he was removed from his command in 2014 over his leadership style. Flynn went on to criticize some of his superiors, including Obama, regarding their stances on Islamist extremism. He also traveled to Russia on a trip paid for by state-run media...

Trump officials say they’ve got it all in hand, or will soon. “I want to personally again thank Ambassador Rice and her entire team for their preparation: the transition materials… that they’ve provided to us, the initiation of various NSC reform measures that she has already undertaken, and the time that she and her team took to help guide us and to help us be as well prepared as we can be prior to inauguration day,” said incoming National Security Adviser Mike Flynn, sharing the stage with Rice on Jan. 10 at the U.S. Institute of Peace’s Passing the Baton...

All our Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, is missing is a fiddle. For the duration of the seemingly endless Syrian civil war, she has figuratively fiddled while that country burns. Now, with one foot out the door from a tenure that has all but obliterated her once formidable reputation as an anti-genocide activist, she’s decided to kick Israel in the teeth. What most amazes me about this past Friday’s anti-Israel resolution that was cooked up by Barack Obama, John Kerry, Susan Rice, and Power is not that it took place. We have long known that the quartet had...

President-elect Trump has chosen retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg as chief of staff and executive secretary of the National Security Council and Monica Crowley as senior director of strategic communications for the National Security Council, a transition source tells Washington Examiner. Trump's transition officially announced the appointments Thursday afternoon.

Last October, the Yemeni government came to the CIA with a request: Could the agency collect intelligence that might help target the network of a U.S.-born al-Qaida recruiter named Anwar al-Awlaki? What happened next is haunting, in light of subsequent events. The CIA concluded that it could not assist the Yemenis in locating al-Awlaki for a possible capture operation. The primary reason was that the agency lacked specific evidence that he threatened the lives of Americans — which is the threshold for any capture-or-kill operation against a U.S. citizen. The Yemenis also wanted U.S. Special Forces' help in pursuing al-Awlaki;...

For years the Obama administration has been accused of micromanaging the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from inside the White House. Now in an astonishing report from Fox News anchor Bret Baier, three former Obama Defense Secretaries are openly slamming him for his distrust of the military, his failure to lead and they're exposing his inexperienced and closest advisors for second guessing senior field commanders with phone calls to the battlefield. "President Obama, he's one of the youngest presidents we've ever had. One of the most inexperienced presidents we've ever had. He has a staff around him that is very...

Emails released by the State Department on Friday show that Hillary Clintons longtime friend Sidney Blumenthal reached out to her on behalf of a former United Kingdom diplomat who was interested in setting up secret channels between insurgents and governments. Clinton was receptive to the idea which came via Blumenthal from Jonathan Powell, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blairs chief of staff. (Quote) Hillary, Jonathan Powell has launched a new NGO that has already initiated some very interesting work below the radar, (Unquote) Blumenthal wrote in the March 18, 2012 email. (Quote)Sid We are trying to replicate what we did...