White House national security adviser Mike Waltz has ordered a “full review” of personnel at the National Security Council (NSC), starting a process to weed out detailees at the agency who are not aligned with President Trump’s agenda.
An NSC spokesperson said personnel reviews and evaluations of staffers began at 12:01 p.m. on Monday.
“It is entirely appropriate for Mr. Waltz to ensure NSC personnel are committed to implementing President Trump’s America First agenda to protect our national security and wisely use the tax dollars of America’s working men and women,” spokesperson Brian Hughes said in a statement.
Some detailees have already concluded their service. Others are expected to be removed, while new ones are onboarded.
The Associated Press first reported that Waltz’s team told roughly 160 NSC staffers to work from home while the personnel review takes place. The move essentially sidelined those officials while Trump gets his team in place.
There are dozens of staffers at the NSC who are detailed to various government agencies in each administration. Those officials work at the FBI, the State Department, the CIA, the Energy Department and elsewhere.
Some Trump allies had raised concerns that Waltz did not plan on cleaning house of Biden administration detailees upon taking office. Waltz sought to dispel those fears in a social media post and an interview with Breitbart News earlier this month.
“I’ve been out there number one in terms of appearances in the news swinging for the president,” Waltz told Breitbart. “If anybody out there thinks I’m somehow now going to have a platoon full of Never Trumpers they’re full of it. It’s ridiculous.”
Waltz’s predecessor, Jake Sullivan, told reporters at a Jan. 13 press briefing that the national security staffers detailed across the government were “patriots” who “have served without fear or favor for both Democratic and Republican administrations.”
But Trump has long railed against the so-called “deep state,” officials he and some allies argue are working in the government to oppose or hinder his agenda.
Those concerns were inflamed by an anonymous op-ed published in The New York Times in 2018 from a staffer who wrote about officials trying to thwart Trump’s agenda. The official was later revealed to be former Homeland Security staffer Miles Taylor.
In 2019, then-National Security Council staffer Alexander Vindman testified as a whistleblower about Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which served as the basis for Trump’s first impeachment.
