President Trump Removes Stephen Bannon From National Security Council Post

President Donald Trump removed Stephen Bannon, his chief strategist, from the National Security Council’s cabinet-level “principals committee.” The shift was orchestrated by Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser, who insisted on purging a political adviser from the Situation Room where decisions about war and peace are made.

Bannon resisted the move, even threatening at one point to quit if it went forward, according to a White House official who, like others, insisted on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Bannon’s camp denied that he had threatened to resign and spent the day spreading the word that the shift was a natural evolution, not a signal of any diminution of his outsize influence. His allies said privately that Bannon had been put on the principals committee to keep an eye on Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn. With Flynn gone, these allies said, there was no need for Bannon to remain, but they noted that he had kept his security clearance.