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Speaking during the White House press briefing Monday afternoon, National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien called for President Trump to receive the Nobel Peace prize after brokering a peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emerites.  "What I have said is the President is often known as the greatest deal maker. He wrote the book 'The Art of the Deal.' He's considered a great great deal maker, which he is, but I think history is going to remember the President for being a great peacemaker. He brought peace to Israel and the UAE. His diplomats signed a historic accord in...

Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, who was fired from his post at the White House after he testified in the impeachment inquiry against President Trump, wrote in an OP-ED Saturday: "At no point in my career or life have I felt our nation's values under greater threat and in more peril than at this moment." Vindman announced his retirement from the military last month, citing a "campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation" led by the president. In an ESSAY (!) for The Washington Post, Vindman compared the current government to that of the Soviet Union. Vindman and his family emigrated from...

On a late January afternoon, as press secretary Sean Spicer walked into the White House media briefing room, a tall, thin, bespectacled man poked his head in the doorway for a moment before turning around and heading back into the West Wing. Later that week, at another briefing, the man stayed longer, standing in the corner behind the podium, out of view of the array of television cameras. The reporters peppering Spicer with questions were unlikely to know it, but the wallflower watching over the proceedings happened to be the leading conservative intellectual to argue for the election of Donald...

Ever since a “senior official in the Trump administration” penned an anonymous 2018 New York Times column attacking President Trump as unfit for office, Washington has been engrossed in a high-stakes whodunit. After an exhaustive investigation, the White House believes it’s cracked the case, identifying Trump's turncoat as his former deputy national security adviser, Victoria Coates, according to people familiar with the internal probe. Rather than fire Coates, the White House has quietly transferred her to the Department of Energy, where she awaits special assignment in Saudi Arabia -- far from the president. Trump effectively demoted Coates just four months...

In defending his strategy against the deadly coronavirus, President Donald Trump repeatedly has said he slowed its spread into the United States by acting decisively to bar travelers from China on Jan. 31. “I was criticized by the Democrats when I closed the Country down to China many weeks ahead of what almost everyone recommended. Saved many lives,” he tweeted, for instance, on March 2. But Reuters has found that the administration took a month from the time it learned of the outbreak in late December to impose the initial travel restrictions amid furious infighting. During that time, the National...

President Trump has sent a letter to congress giving them 30-days advance notice and informing them of the removal of Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson: [image of letter] The necessary, albeit politically controversial, move comes about two months after President Trump assigned Ric Grenell to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; Grenell is ultimately the acting boss of the overall intelligence community. It is likely DNI Grenell provided some key insight into the sketchy background activity in/around Atkinson’s office, and the overall intelligence apparatus writ large. Additionally, former congressman Mark Meadows is now President Trump’s Chief-of-Staff;...

It has been alleged by multiple officials of the Obama administration, including in The Post, that the president and his then-national security adviser, John Bolton, “dissolved the office” at the White House in charge of pandemic preparedness. Because I led the very directorate assigned that mission, the counterproliferation and biodefense office, for a year and then handed it off to another official who still holds the post, I know the charge is specious. Now, I’m not naive. This is Washington. It’s an election year. Officials out of power want back into power after November. But the middle of a worldwide...

Text message rumors of a national #quarantine are FAKE. There is no national lockdown. @CDCgov has and will continue to post the latest guidance on #COVID19. #coronavirus

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION is considering a set of proposals developed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a retired CIA officer — with assistance from Oliver North, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal — to provide CIA Director Mike Pompeo and the White House with a global, private spy network that would circumvent official U.S. intelligence agencies, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials and others familiar with the proposals. The sources say the plans have been pitched to the White House as a means of countering “deep state” enemies in the intelligence community seeking to undermine Donald...

A former Department of Homeland Security agent says that an investigation he was conducting into a fundamentalist Islamic group operating in the U.S. may have helped stop San Bernardino jihadi Syed Farook had the government not shut down his probe. During an interview with Fox News' Megyn Kelly on Thursday, Philip Haney said that in 2012 as an agent with U.S. Customs and Border Protection's National Targeting Center, he opened an investigation into a Sunni Islamic group called, Tablighi Jamaat, a subset of the fundamentalist Deobandi movement. But Haney said that just a year into the investigation it was shut...

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:  Section 1.  Membership of the Council.  Section 2(b) of Executive Order 13803 of June 30, 2017 (Reviving the National Space Council) is hereby amended to read as follows:“(b)  The Council shall be composed of the following members:(i)     The Vice President, who shall be Chair of the Council;(ii)    The Secretary of State;(iii)   The Secretary of Defense;(iv)    The Secretary of Commerce;(v)     The Secretary of Transportation;(vi)    The Secretary of Energy;(vii)   The Secretary of...

More cuts are coming soon at the White House National Security Council, National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien said, as part of an effort to make the council streamlined and efficient and to make sure the council staffers are dedicated to carrying out policies chosen by President Donald Trump. “It’s really a privilege to work in the White House. It’s not a right,” O’Brien added. “At the end of the day, the president is entitled to staffers that want to execute his policy, that he has confidence in, and I think every president’s entitled to that.” “When they come to the...

Tired of all this WINNING yet? – Both the NASDAQ and S&P 500 set new record highs on Monday, as the Trump economy just keeps WINNING for Americans and their 401(k)’s. The Dow was also up, but not quite at record levels reached a few weeks ago, before the Coronavirus scare. And it’s only going to get better, as early trading futures indicate all indexes will open at higher levels today. About those “70 Obama holdovers” cut from the NSC… – Twitter and other social media outlets went nuts on Monday over a slightly misleading report issued by the Washington...

President Trump is making good on his promises to “drain the swamp” and cut Obama-era holdovers from his staffs, especially the critical and recently controversial National Security Council. Officials confirmed that Trump and national security adviser Robert O’Brien have cut 70 positions inherited from former President Barack Obama, who had fattened the staff to 200. Since entering the White House, Trump has relied on staffs smaller than previous administrations and has noted how prior president’s had a much smaller NSC team.

President Trump and his aides wasted little time opening a campaign of retribution against those he blames for his impeachment, firing on Friday two of the most prominent witnesses in the inquiry against him barely 48 hours after the Senate acquitted the president. Emboldened by his victory and determined to strike back, Mr. Trump fired Gordon D. Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, within hours of the White House dismissing Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, a decorated Iraq war veteran who was a Ukraine expert on the National Security Council. Both officials testified to a House committee about the...

The White House is weighing a plan to dismiss Alexander Vindman from the National Security Council after he testified in President Donald Trump’s impeachment inquiry, preparing to position the move as part of a broader effort to shrink the foreign policy bureaucracy, two people familiar with the matter said. The White House intends to portray any house-cleaning as part of a downsizing of the NSC staff, not retaliation, according to the people. Some of the officials being targeted for removal from the NSC would be reassigned because they’re perceived as being disloyal to the president, three people familiar with the...

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who made waves as a witness during the Trump impeachment proceedings, was fired Friday by the National Security Council and escorted off of the White House grounds, Fox News has confirmed. Vindman was on detail to the National Security Council from the Department of Defense, and it is expected he will return there. It comes just two days after President Trump was acquitted in the Senate on the impeachment charges brought by the House last year over his dealings with Ukraine. VINDMAN DRAWS APPLAUSE DURING IMPEACHMENT HEARING: 'THIS IS AMERICA' In a lengthy statement, Vindman’s attorney,...

The White House plans to transfer Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, whose testimony in the House impeachment hearings infuriated President Trump and his allies, out of the National Security Council staff as early as Friday, two senior administration officials said. It was not immediately clear where he would next be sent within the Defense Department, one administration official said, but Colonel Vindman is on active duty in the military. The action comes just days after Mr. Trump was acquitted in a Senate impeachment trial that turned in part on the testimony of Colonel Vindman and other administration officials who described...

White House Pondering Shrinking the NSC, Starting With Firing the Pudgy Fat-Ass "Lieutenant Colonel" Vindman This article starts off all right... The White House is reportedly weighing options to dismiss Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman from the National Security Council (NSC) in an effort to shrink its foreign policy bureaucracy, a report said. Bloomberg reported that the White House plans to frame it as part of an NSC staff downsizing, not a retaliation. Then the article starts spinning for #The Resistance: Vindman had drawn applause from spectators during his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee -- after expressing his love for...

In November Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Ron Johnson (R-WI) blasted Lt. Col Vindman in an 11-page letter written to ranking member of the House Intel Committee Devin Nunes and Rep. Jim Jordan. Senator Johnson wrote the Congressman a letter to provide his first-hand information and perspective on events relevant to the impeachment inquiry.Johnson traveled to Ukraine with special envoy Kurt Volker, spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in person and spoke to President Trump about the hold on military aid — unlike all of the ‘witnesses’ Schiff has dragged in to testify using...