As President Joe Biden makes a final case for his foreign policy legacy Monday, his incoming successor’s national security team has begun signaling their intention to get rid of nonpolitical career appointees at the National Security Council (NSC) as they prepare to staff the agency with their own handpicked selections.
The incoming administration has begun questioning some career officials who are delegated to Biden’s NSC about their loyalty, including who they voted for in last year’s election and a rundown of their political contributions, according to multiple US officials.
Ordinarily, career officials are detailed for two years to the NSC from other government agencies, including the State Department, the Pentagon and intelligence agencies, to provide expert advice to the White House. Biden, who will deliver a capstone foreign policy speech at the State Department on Monday, has relied on those career officials as he managed a range of global flashpoints.
Detailees are normally carried over when administrations change, providing a degree of continuity in areas of ongoing national security concern, including the ongoing wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. They work alongside political appointees selected by the new president.
Yet many career officials now serving on Biden’s NSC now believe they will be asked to return to their home agencies soon after Trump assumes power next week.
Trump’s incoming national security adviser Mike Waltz has said the Trump team plans to send current detailees back to their home agencies in favor of people they’ve selected themselves, in an effort to stock the NSC with people who support Trump’s agenda.
He said in an interview with Breitbart last week the Trump team had already identified names of people they wanted to bring into the NSC once Trump has taken office.
“Everybody is going to resign at 12:01 on January 20,” Waltz said. “We’re working through our process to get everybody their clearances and through the transition process now.”
But efforts to suss out the loyalties of current nonpolitical staffers have ramped up in recent days, including questions about voting history and social media posts, according to the US official. Those being questioned include topic experts who have been responsible for coordinating the Biden administration’s approach to various global issues.
As Biden prepares to hand off two global conflicts, with a number of other hot spots boiling, major changes in staffing at the NSC could lend another layer of uncertainty to the incoming administration.
“I don’t know what he’s actually going to do, so I will reserve comment until I see,” Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” when questioned about the prospective changes.