Trump Slashes National Security Staff After Whistleblower Complaint

Trump ordered a big cut to the national security staff after the whistleblower complaint about his Ukraine call.

Read the biggest developments from Michael Cohen's testimony.

Bloomberg reported:

President Donald Trump has ordered a substantial reduction in the staff of the National Security Council, according to five people familiar with the plans, as the White House confronts an impeachment inquiry touched off by a whistle-blower complaint related to the agency’s work.

….

The request to limit the size of the NSC staff was conveyed to senior agency officials by acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and O’Brien this week. The whistle-blower complaint focused on Trump’s conduct in a July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has been followed by damaging reports on the president’s private conversations with other world leaders.

The White House is insisting that their motivation for cutting the national security staff is a transition to new leadership and to make the agency run more efficiently.

It’s all just a big coincidence that Trump is cutting the national security staff after a staffer who was detailed there filed a whistleblower complaint against him.

In politics, nothing is ever a coincidence.

Trump’s answer to the whistleblower complaint was to cut the staff so that there would be fewer people around who could potentially alert the American people and Congress to what he is doing. This is not what an innocent president does. Each time Trump has cut or removed staff, he has replaced qualified people with loyalists who go along with his activities. When Trump replaces staff, things get worse, not better.

Donald Trump is sending a message that his efforts to get foreign governments to interfere in the 2020 election are going to continue until he is thrown out of office.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association