{"id":20706,"date":"2017-01-30T06:20:42","date_gmt":"2017-01-30T06:20:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=20706"},"modified":"2017-01-30T06:20:42","modified_gmt":"2017-01-30T06:20:42","slug":"bannon-seizes-security-role-generals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/bannon-seizes-security-role-generals.html","title":{"rendered":"Bannon Seizes a Security Role From Generals"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bannon Seizes a Security Role From Generals<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

Bannon Seizes a Security Role From Generals:-<\/strong> The whirlwind first week of Donald J. Trump\u2019s presidency had all the bravura hallmarks of a Stephen K. Bannon production.<\/span><\/p>\n

It started with the doom-hued inauguration homily to \u201cAmerican carnage\u201d in United States cities co-written by Mr. Bannon, followed a few days later by his \u201cshut up\u201d message to the news media. The week culminated with a blizzard of executive orders, mostly hatched by Mr. Bannon\u2019s team and the White House policy adviser, Stephen Miller, aimed at disorienting the \u201cenemy,\u201d fulfilling campaign promises and distracting attention from Mr. Trump\u2019s less than flawless debut.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the defining moment for Mr. Bannon came Saturday night in the form of an executive order giving the rumpled right-wing agitator a full seat on the \u201cprincipals committee\u201d of the National Security Council \u2014 while downgrading the roles of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of national intelligence, who will now attend only when the council is considering issues in their direct areas of responsibilities. It is a startling elevation of a political adviser, to a status alongside the secretaries of state and defense, and over the president\u2019s top military and intelligence advisers.<\/span><\/p>\n

In theory, the move put Mr. Bannon, a former Navy surface warfare officer, admiral\u2019s aide, investment banker, Hollywood producer and Breitbart News firebrand on the same level as his friend, Michael T. Flynn, the national security adviser, a former Pentagon intelligence chief who was Mr. Trump\u2019s top adviser on national security issues before a series of missteps reduced his influence.<\/span><\/p>\n

But in terms of real influence, Mr. Bannon looms above almost everyone except the president\u2019s son-in-law, Jared D. Kushner, in the Trumpian pecking order, according to interviews with two dozen Trump insiders and current and former national security officials. The move involving Mr. Bannon, as well as the boost in status to the White House homeland security adviser, Thomas P. Bossert, and Mr. Trump\u2019s relationships with Cabinet appointees like Defense Secretary Jim Mattis have essentially layered over Mr. Flynn.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, said Mr. Bannon \u2014 whose Breitbart website was a magnet for white nationalists, antiglobalists and conspiracy theorists \u2014 always planned to participate in national security. Mr. Flynn welcomed his participation, Mr. Spicer said, but the general \u201cled the reorganization of the N.S.C.\u201d in order to streamline an antiquated and bloated bureaucracy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Former White House officials in both parties were shocked by the move.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe last place you want to put somebody who worries about politics is in a room where they\u2019re talking about national security,\u201d said Leon E. Panetta, a former White House chief of staff, defense secretary and C.I.A. director in two Democratic administration.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never seen that happen, and it shouldn\u2019t happen. It\u2019s not like he has broad experience in foreign policy and national security issues. He doesn\u2019t. His primary role is to control or guide the president\u2019s conscience based on his campaign promises. That\u2019s not what the national security council is supposed to be about.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That opinion was shared by President George W. Bush\u2019s last chief of staff, Josh Bolten, who barred Karl Rove, Mr. Bush\u2019s political adviser, from N.S.C. meetings. A president\u2019s decisions made with those advisers, he told a conference audience in September, \u201cinvolve life and death for the people in uniform\u201d and should \u201cnot be tainted by any political decisions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Susan E. Rice, President Barack Obama\u2019s last national security adviser, called the arrangement \u201cstone cold crazy\u201d in a tweet posted Sunday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Spicer said the language the Trump White House used in its N.S.C. executive order is, with the exception of Mr. Bannon\u2019s position \u2014 which was created during the transition \u2014 almost identical in content to one the Bush administration drafted in 2001. And Mr. Obama\u2019s top political operative, David Axelrod, sat in on some N.S.C. meetings, he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

There were key differences. Mr. Axelrod never served as a permanent member as Mr. Bannon will now, though he sat in on some critical meetings, especially as Mr. Obama debated strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. \u201cIt\u2019s a profound shift,\u201d Mr. Axelrod said. \u201cI don\u2019t know what his bona fides are to be the principal foreign policy adviser to the president.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But Mr. Bannon\u2019s elevation does not merely reflect his growing influence on national security. It is emblematic of Mr. Trump\u2019s trust on a range of political and ideological issues.<\/span><\/p>\n

During the campaign, the sly and provocative Mr. Bannon played a paradoxical role \u2014 calming the easily agitated candidate during his frequent rough patches and egging him on when he felt Mr. Trump needed to fire up the white working-class base. The president respects Mr. Bannon because he is independently wealthy and therefore does not need the job, and both men ascribe to a shoot-the-prisoners credo when put on the defensive, according to former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Bannon is a deft operator within the White House, and he has been praised by Republicans who view him skeptically as the most knowledgeable on policy around the president. But his stated preference for blowing things up \u2014 as opposed to putting them back together \u2014 may not translate to his new role.<\/span><\/p>\n

The hasty drafting of the immigration order, and its scattershot execution, brought a measure of Mr. Bannon\u2019s chaotic and hyperaggressive political style to the more predictable administration of the federal government. Within hours of the edict, airport customs and border agents were detaining or blocking dozens migrant families, some whom had permanent resident status, until John F. Kelly, the new homeland security secretary, intervened.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Kelly\u2019s department had suggested green card holders be exempted from the order, but Mr. Bannon and Mr. Miller, a hard-liner on immigration, overruled him, according two American officials.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Priebus, speaking on NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press\u201d on Sunday indicated a softening of the stance, saying the order would not block \u201cgreen card holders moving forward\u201d \u2014 but said anyone seeking to enter the country from the listed countries would be subjected to tighter scrutiny.<\/span><\/p>\n

People close to Mr. Bannon said he is not accumulating power for power\u2019s sake, but is instead helping to fill a staff leadership vacuum created, in part, by Mr. Flynn\u2019s stumbling performance as national security adviser.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Flynn still communicates with Mr. Trump frequently, and his staff has been assembling a version of the Presidential Daily Briefing for Mr. Trump, truncated but comprehensive, to be the president\u2019s main source of national security information. During the campaign, he often had unfettered access to the candidate, who appreciated his brash style and contempt for Hillary Clinton, but during the transition, Mr. Flynn privately complained about having to share face time with others.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Flynn \u201chas the full confidence of the president and his team,\u201d Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, said in an in email. Emails and phone calls to Mr. Flynn and his top aide were not returned.<\/span><\/p>\n

A president who likes generals and abhors political correctness, Mr. Trump found in Mr. Flynn \u2014 who joined Trump backers in an anti-Clinton \u201clock her up!\u201d chant during the campaign \u2014 perhaps the most politically incorrect general this side of his hero, Gen. George S. Patton.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Mr. Flynn, a lifelong Democrat sacked as head of the Pentagon\u2019s intelligence arm after clashing with Obama administration officials in 2014, has gotten on the nerves of Mr. Trump and other administration officials because of his sometimes overbearing demeanor, and has further diminished his internal standing by presiding over a chaotic and opaque N.S.C. transition process that prioritized the hiring of military officials over civilian experts recommended to him by his own team.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Flynn\u2019s penchant for talking too much was on display on Friday in a meeting with Theresa May, the British prime minister, according to two people with direct knowledge of the events.<\/span><\/p>\n

When Mrs. May said that she understood wanting a dialogue with Mr. Putin but stressed the need to be careful, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Flynn when the two were scheduled to speak.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Flynn replied it was Saturday \u2014 he had delayed it to fit in Mrs. May\u2019s meeting for \u201cprotocol\u201d as a United States ally, adding at length that Mr. Putin was impatient to chat.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Trump, the person said, appeared irritated by the response.<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, the episode that did the most damage to the Trump-Flynn relationship occurred in early December when Mr. Flynn\u2019s son, also named Michael, unleashed a series of tweets pushing a discredited conspiracy theory that Clinton associates had run a child sex-slave ring out of a Washington pizza restaurant.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Trump told his staff to get rid of the younger Mr. Flynn, who had been hired by his father to help during the transition. But Mr. Trump did so reluctantly because of his loyalty during the campaign, when dozens of former military officials were dismissing Mr. Trump as too unstable to command.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI want him fired immediately,\u201d Mr. Trump said in a muted rendition of his \u201cYou\u2019re fired!\u201d line in \u201cThe Apprentice,\u201d according to two people with knowledge of the interaction.<\/span><\/p>\n

That has not stopped the general\u2019s son from spouting off: On Saturday, at a time when Trump surrogates were pushing back on the idea that the executive order did not discriminate against any religion, the younger Mr. Flynn tweeted his approval of the policy, adding \u201c#MuslimBan.\u201d The tweet was subsequently deleted; his entire account disappeared later in the day.<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, the national security adviser has also continued to dabble in the kind of bomb-throwing behavior that concerns Mr. Trump\u2019s allies, such as planning to attend an anti-Clinton \u201cDeploraball\u201d event at the time of the inauguration. He was urged to skip it by Trump allies, and ultimately agreed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Bannon still regard Mr. Flynn as an asset. \u201cIn the room and out of the room, Steve Bannon is General Flynn\u2019s biggest defender,\u201d said Kellyanne Conway, another top adviser to the president.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it is unclear when the maneuvers to reduce Mr. Flynn\u2019s role began. Two Obama administration officials said Trump transition officials inquired about expanded national security roles for Mr. Bannon and Mr. Kushner at the earliest stages of the transition in November \u2014 before the younger Mr. Flynn became a liability \u2014 but after Mr. Flynn had begun to chafe on the nerves of his colleagues on the team.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Flynn\u2019s reputation has raised questions among some in the cabinet. Two weeks ago, both men held a meeting with Rex W. Tillerson, Mr. Trump\u2019s pick to run the State Department, Mr. Mattis and Mike Pompeo, now the C.I.A. director, to discuss coordination \u2014 Mr. Flynn was invited but did not attend.<\/span><\/p>\n

Part of the meeting was devoted to discussing concerns about Mr. Flynn, according to an official with knowledge of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/01\/29\/us\/stephen-bannon-donald-trump-national-security-council.html?_r=0<\/span><\/div>\n

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