"The National Security
Council’s controversial senior director for intelligence programs has
been removed from his position, sources say, in the latest sign that
National-Security Adviser H.R. McMaster is asserting control over the
office he runs.
"Ezra Cohen-Watnick, a 31-year-old former
Defense Intelligence Agency officer who was brought in to the
administration by former National-Security Adviser Michael Flynn, was
let go from the council this week, according to two sources familiar
with the matter.
"The White House confirmed Cohen-Watnick’s firing on Wednesday evening, with a White House official saying in a statement: 'General McMaster appreciates the good work accomplished in the NSC's Intelligence directorate under Ezra Cohen's leadership. He has determined that, at this time, a different set of experiences is best-suited to carrying that work forward. General McMaster is confident that Ezra will make many further significant contributions to national security in another position in the administration.'"
To read the rest of Gray's article, click HERE.
What follow are the first few paragraphs of Rosie Gray's related Atlantic article entitled "The Man McMaster Couldn't Fire" (from 7-23-17):
"Just 24 days into his tenure
as Donald Trump’s national-security adviser, Michael Flynn was forced
to resign, having reportedly misled Vice President Mike Pence about his
contacts with Russian officials. When Flynn departed, the men and women
he’d appointed to the National Security Council grew nervous about their
own jobs, and with good reason. The new national-security adviser,
General H.R. McMaster, promptly began clearing out Flynn’s people, among
them Dave Cattler, the deputy assistant to the president for regional
affairs, Adam Lovinger, a strategic affairs analyst on loan from the
Pentagon, and KT McFarland, Flynn’s deputy, who was eased out with the
ambassadorship to Singapore. Even Steve Bannon, among the most powerful
people in the White House, was removed from the meetings of the NSC
Principal’s Committee, where he had been installed early on in the
administration.
"There was one person, however, who
McMaster couldn’t get rid of: Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director
for intelligence programs. McMaster tried to remove him in March, but
President Trump, at the urging of Bannon and Jared Kushner, told
McMaster that Cohen-Watnick was staying, as first reported by Politico.
According to a senior White House official, the two men had a sit-down
meeting the following week in which McMaster acknowledged that he hadn’t
been able to do what he wanted to do, and that they would keep things
as they are and 'see how they go for a while.' That was over four months
ago. That Cohen-Watnick, 31 years old and largely unknown before
entering the administration, has become unfireable reveals how important
he has become to the Trump White House, where loyalty is prized.
"The senior in
Cohen-Watnick’s title reflects the importance of his job, if not the
level of experience he brings to it. The senior director for
intelligence programs on the NSC is a powerful position, designed to
coordinate and liaise between the U.S. intelligence community and the
White House.
"'If the incumbent has an effective working
relationship with the national-security adviser or even the president
directly, the senior director for intelligence has an opportunity to
exercise considerable influence on intelligence policy, covert actions,
and sensitive collection operations,' said Stephen Slick, a former CIA
official who held the position during the Bush administration.
"The CIA has traditionally had control over who fills this position, and normally the job is staffed by a more experienced official. McMaster, assuming he’d be allowed to relieve or reassign Cohen-Watnick, had gone so far as to interview Cohen-Watnick’s potential replacement, Linda Weissgold, a veteran CIA officer.
"Despite his prominent, and apparently quite secure, position in Trump’s NSC, little is known about Cohen-Watnick, who had spent much of his short career as a low-ranking official at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Information about him in publicly available sources is scarce. Few higher-ups from the DIA remember him. Only one picture of him can be found online, a snapshot unearthed by Al-Monitor’s Laura Rozen.
"Unlike other White House officials who have become public figures in their own right, Cohen-Watnick never speaks for himself publicly, leaving others to fill the void. Yet he hardly comes into sharper focus when you talk to co-workers, friends, and former colleagues. Ask around about Ezra Cohen-Watnick, and people get defensive. Some profess not to know him, or ask why anyone would want to write about him. Others simply refuse to discuss him."
To read this article in its entirety, click HERE.
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