Rick Perry is preparing to exit the Trump administration. As the Secretary of Energy, he is also a member of the principals committee of the United States National Security Council, the official group of advisors to the president on all matters of national security, the military, and foreign policy.
Secretary Perry “is finalizing the terms and timing of his departure,” Bloomberg News reports Wednesday night, literally hours before Attorney General William Barr is to address the press on the impending release of his version of the Mueller report.
Bloomberg adds that “Perry’s exit isn’t imminent,” and is not one-hundred percent definite but that Perry, a former governor of Texas, has been planning his exit for weeks.
President Donald Trump reportedly asked Secretary Perry if he would become Secretary of Homeland Security before Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was fired. Perry refused.
Perry’s exit is especially damaging to the Trump administration, not only because of its timing, s close to the Mueller report release, but because President Trump’s National Security Council is in shreds.
Related: NYT: Rick Perry Thought as Energy Secretary He Would Be Global Ambassador for Us Oil Industry
In addition to the President and the Vice President, the National Security Council’s principals committee includes the Secretary of State (Mike Pompeo), the Secretary of Defense (Acting, Patrick Shanahan, who is not expected to be nominated to the position permanently), the Secretary of Homeland Security (Acting, Kevin McAleenan), and the Secretary of Energy, which likely will be filled with an “Acting” designee, and the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (Acting, Jonathan Cohen).
The National Security Council principals committee will then consist of four “Acting” officials, the Secretary of State, Trump, and Vice President Mike Pence.
The full NSC in the Trump administration also includes the Secretary of the Treasury, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Director of National Intelligence.
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