The draining of the National Security Council swamp is going to continue into next week, CNN reported.
President Donald Trump has vowed to drain the swamp in Washington, and he has pointed to the overgrown size of the NSC as one of the ways to do it, particularly after he dismissed Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and his twin brother, Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, over insubordination, if not alleged leaks.
National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien will make more cuts this week, two sources told CNN.
The cuts might include about a dozen officials, both by attrition and by reassigning those detailed to the NSC back to their original departments at State, Defense, or Homeland Security, per the report.
Firings are also possible, according to one of CNN's sources.
The NSC had ballooned up to 236 officials during the Obama administration after being around 100 during former President George W. Bush administration, per CNN.
O'Brien had vowed to cut the size of the NSC by half by early 2020 and 40-45 officials had already been taken off their temporary NSC detail in the White House, CNN reported.
Still, some 180 are detailed to the White House on loan from other departments as of last month, according to the report, and O'Brien told NPR another 60-70 officials will be assigned back to the departments by the end of February.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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