Trump names new national security adviser

Tribune Washington Bureau (TNS)

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.

President Donald Trump named Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster as his new national security adviser Monday, replacing Michael Flynn, who was forced to resign last week.

McMaster, a career Army officer and strategist, is known as one of the military’s most prominent intellectuals.

“He is highly respected by everyone in the military, and we’re very honored to have him,” Trump said of McMaster in making the announcement while seated in the living room of Mar-a-Lago, his estate here, between a uniformed McMaster and Keith Kellogg, who had been interim national security adviser.

Kellogg will return to his previous role as chief of staff to the jobholder, now McMaster.

McMaster will take over a National Security Council that is short on staff and the subject of reports of internal turmoil. The president’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, was given a seat on the council, a highly unusual move for a political appointee.

Bannon was an architect of the temporary ban on entry into the U.S. for refugees and travelers from seven majority-Muslim countries whose ad hoc rollout sowed chaos at airports around the country before it was stopped by the courts. Trump is expected to order a revised travel ban as soon as this week.

Flynn’s ouster came after reports emerged that he had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about his discussions in December with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. about impending sanctions by the Obama administration over its conclusion that Russia had meddled in the election.

McMaster has served since July 2014 as the director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center at Fort Eustis in Virginia.

He is perhaps best known as the author of a 1997 book, “Dereliction of Duty,” that explores the military’s responsibility for U.S. failure during the Vietnam War.

“What a privilege it is to be able to continue serving our nation,” McMaster said alongside Trump. “I’m grateful to you for that opportunity, and I look forward to joining the national security team and doing everything that I can to advance and protect the interests of the American people.”

Trump also said that John Bolton, the former ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, who also interviewed for the job, will serve the administration in an unspecified capacity.