Report: Bolton set to clean house at NSC

The permanent national security bureaucracy – whom many call the Deep State – is in big trouble at the White House.

A new sheriff is in town, and his name is John Bolton.  Bolton, named the new national security adviser by Donald Trump, is ready to fire dozens of White House staffers when he takes the job next month.

Washington Examiner:

Among those who will get the boot will be Obama administration holdovers and anyone who isn't loyal to President Trump, sources told Foreign Policy.

"Bolton can and will clean house," one former White House official was quoted as saying.

On Thursday, Trump announced that Bolton would replace H.R. McMaster as head of the National Security Council – a move that would be effective on April 9.

Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under former President George W. Bush, hinted in follow-up interviews Thursday on Fox News and Fox Business that he would be a strong force to solve the White House's lingering issue with leaks, particularly those of a national security nature.

"It's not for them to put in jeopardy the other 300 plus million American citizens just because they think their morality is better than everybody else's," Bolton said of the leakers on Fox Business.

Trump may be having trouble draining the swamp on Capitol Hill, but he's making progress on the diplomatic and national security fronts.  State Department employees have been whining for months about Trump not naming new personnel.  Dire warnings about how badly U.S. diplomatic efforts will suffer because there aren't enough bureaucrats to push the paper appear not to be materializing.

So now it's the turn of the NSC.  It really is outrageous that Obama holdovers have access to information that, when leaked selectively, can make their boss look bad.  But that's the nature of the NSC, as the appointed staffers rely heavily on others to be kept up to date on what's happening in the world.

If Bolton follows through, I fully expect most of those positions to go unfilled.  And that's as good as anything when you're trying to drain the swamp.

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