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The CIA’s deputy director plans to resign and will be replaced by White House lawyer and agency outsider Avril D. Haines, Director John O. Brennan said Wednesday. Haines, who will succeed career officer Michael Morell on Aug. 9, has served for three years as President Obama’s deputy counsel in charge of national security issues and as legal adviser to the National Security Council. Although she has never worked inside the intelligence agency, “she knows more about covert action than anyone in the U.S. government outside of the CIA,” Brennan said in an interview.

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today announced that the National Security Council (NSC) on May 23, 2017, informed it by letter that the materials regarding the unmasking by Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice of “the identities of any U.S. citizens associated with the Trump presidential campaign or transition team” have been removed to the Obama Library. The NSC will not fulfill an April 4 Judicial Watch request for records regarding information relating to people “who were identified pursuant to intelligence collection activities.” The agency also informed Judicial Watch that it would not turn over communications with any Intelligence Community...

...The NSC memo obtained by The Hill stated that reverting back to the pre-2014 policy on Cuba would have shown “a strong commitment to human rights and democracy” and pleased anti-Castro “interest groups,” but would have also come with a number of risks.  “Global adversaries, such as Iran, Russia and China, would likely develop an even stronger footing in Cuba” if ties with the island were severed, the NSC document says.   The memo warned that cutting off relations would have eliminated economic and political leverage over Cuba to extract reforms, damaged U.S. objectives in Latin America, hurt U.S. businesses...

I have to start with new information that has been confirmed on the Podesta Lobbying Group. Of course, we know that the notorious Podesta Brothers, John and Tony Podesta, are the owners of this Group. However, evidently they have been protected while under the Obama Administration. Now that Obama is gone, the gloves are coming off. One of Washington's most powerful lobbying firms did not disclose the wide extent of its lucrative political work for a Ukrainian group tied to both onetime Trump adviser Paul Manafort and to pro-Russian politicians, new records show. The firm, the Podesta Group, said nothing...

When Senator Lindsey Graham’s long-time legislative assistant Virginia Boney, who specialized in healthcare legislation, was hired to be a legislative affairs chief for the National Security Council, more than a few heads turned. Boney, who is anti-Trump, has no meaningful national security experience. She was also hired instead of several veterans who had applied for the position.“McMaster took her in exchange for Lindsey’s and McCain’s support,” one source with knowledge of the deal told me. Several others confirmed this assessment, noting Boney is completely unqualified to be at NSC.Before working at NSC, Boney was, Deputy Director of Appropriations and Projects...

The Pentagon this week suspended the security clearance of a White House National Security Council analyst that U.S. officials say was the target of political retribution by government bureaucrats opposed to President Trump's appointees. Adam S. Lovinger, a 12-year strategic affairs analyst with the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment (ONA), has been on loan to the NSC since January when he was picked for the position by then-National Security Adviser Michael T. Flynn. Lovinger was notified in a letter from the Pentagon on Monday that his Top-Secret, Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS-SCI) clearance had been suspended and that he had to...

Officials say Kushner taking unprecedented role to interfere in foreign policy matters White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner is leading an unprecedented effort to meddle in the White House's National Security Council, causing mayhem for senior staff who say the president's son-in-law is interfering in key foreign policy debates, according to Trump administration officials who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon. Kushner has taken aggressive action to micro-manage the NSC, overshadowing even recently installed National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, according to sources both inside and outside the White House who described Kushner's behavior as highly unusual and damaging to the...

President Donald Trump’s deputy national security adviser, K.T. McFarland, is expected to step down and has been offered the position of U.S. ambassador to Singapore, a U.S. official said on Sunday. The move comes as Trump's national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, retools the national security team he inherited from retired General Michael Flynn, who resigned as Trump's first national security adviser in February. The 65-year-old McFarland is a former national security analyst for Fox News and was one of Trump's original hires after he was elected president on Nov. 8. News of her pending departure came less than a week...

One day after what was demonstrably one of the most-covered stories by the media focused on the “removal” of Steve Bannon, President Trump’s top adviser, from the National Security Council (NSC), he attended a council meeting, the Washington Examiner reported on Thursday. “White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has attended the first meeting of the National Security Council after he was removed from the principals committee Wednesday,” the Examiner story said. Despite the headlines about Bannon’s removal, most media outlets included the fact that the change on the council only meant Bannon was no longer a permanent member on the...

The anti-Trump media jumped into a level of gleeful frenzy today amid a required security filing noticing that Senior Trump Adviser Steve Bannon was no longer a member of the “principals committee” on the National Security Council. The hilarity cemented itself when competing media outlets were arguing about Steve Bannon being on the NSC, or being kicked-off the NSC, while Bannon walked past them en route to today’s NSC meeting. Wait, wha… huh? Yeah -{Insert Laugh Track HERE}- Nothing ever happens in a vacuum, and today is no exception. No, Steve Bannon is not being removed from the Senior advisory...

White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon said Wednesday he was removed from a permanent seat on the National Security Council because it was no longer in danger of being “operationalized” for non-security purposes, as he asserted was the case under former Obama national security adviser Susan E. Rice. Mr. Bannon, who was taken off the NSC by President Trump, said new national security adviser H.R. McMaster “has returned the NSC to its proper function.” “Susan Rice operationalized the NSC during the last administration,” Mr. Bannon said in a statement. “I was put on to ensure that it was de-operationalized.”

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry has been added to a core group within the National Security Council in a shakeup of members announced on Wednesday. Perry, the secretary of energy, was one of several officials added to the principals committee, the primary group of policy-makers for national security...

White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has been removed from his seat on the National Security Council, reversing one of the most controversial decisions of young Trump administration.

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Susan Rice, former President Barack Obama's national security adviser, reportedly requested on several occasions the identities of "masked" U.S. persons in intelligence reports linked to President Trump's transition and campaign. The revelation contradicts Rice's past comments on March 22, when she claimed she knew "nothing" about the intelligence reports. White House lawyers discovered Rice's dozens of requests last month, during a National Security Council review of the "government's policy on ‘unmasking' the identities of individuals in the U.S. who are not targets of electronic eavesdropping, but whose communications are collected incidentally," Eli Lake of Bloomberg reported Monday, citing U.S. officials....

Multiple sources tell Fox News that Susan Rice, former national security adviser under then-President Barack Obama, requested to unmask the names of Trump transition officials caught up in surveillance. The unmasked names, of people associated with Donald Trump, were then sent to all those at the National Security Council, some at the Defense Department, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and then-CIA Director John Brennan – essentially, the officials at the top, including former Rice deputy Ben Rhodes. *snip* Nunes has faced criticism from Democrats for viewing pertinent documents on White House grounds and announcing their contents to the press....

Journalist/activist Mike Cernovich reports that former White House National Security Advisor Susan Rice obtained intelligence reports showing the identities of innocent Americans who incidentally spoke to foreign officials under security sweeps for spying or intelligence activities. Under U.S. law, U.S. persons are protected from such disclosure, which could be dry-cleaners asking envoys to pick up their laundry or wrong number phone messages spilling their guts about their mothers-in-law. If such U.S. persons get swept up in surveillance, they are protected. But only if they remain 'masked,' which is the law of the land. Cernovich says the White House Counsel's office...

K.T. McFarland, who was tapped in November to serve as President Trump's deputy national security adviser, has been offered the job of U.S. ambassador to Singapore, CNN reported on Saturday. McFarland is also in the running for a position at the State Department, according to the report, which said it was unclear if Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had made her a concrete offer. McFarland was chosen to serve as the number two on the National Security Council when retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was set to be President Trump’s top adviser on national security. After Flynn resigned following reports...

As women all over the world celebrated Women’s History Month this March, little attention focused on the number of women who form the backbone of President Trump’s National Security Council. His two deputy national security advisers — K.T. McFarland (pictured above) and Dina Powell, and the person in charge of writing the national security strategy — Nadia Schadlow — are women. It’s likely the first time that women have held those positions simultaneously — no insignificant fact in a field that’s still male-dominated. Together, McFarland, Powell and Schadlow bring different strengths to the table.

Tony Podesta's firm failed to file legally required disclosures after emails with his WH adviser brother A high-dollar lobbyist and fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign failed to file legally required disclosures for his advocacy on behalf of a foreign government in discussions with Clinton’s future campaign chairman, according to a political law expert. High-powered Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta emailed his brother John, a top White House adviser who would later chair the Clinton campaign, in January 2015. Tony wondered if John would attend a meeting with the Indian ambassador to the United States. “I’m at Camp David Friday,” John...