More Trump Aides Will Leave With Michael Flynn, Source Says

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Chris Kleponis / AFP / Getty Images

Other members of the National Security Council staff that ousted national security advisor Michael Flynn assembled over the last two months will be following him in his exit from the White House — including his deputy, a Trump administration source told BuzzFeed News.

The departure of KT McFarland, who was appointed in December to serve as the number two person on the National Security Council and chair of the body's deputies committee meetings, was first reported in the New York Times. Joining her are other senior directors, the source said.

“Whoever the new national security adviser is should be able to pick his own team,” the source told BuzzFeed News.

The expectation that Flynn's team will leave with him runs counter to what White House officials told the NSC just this morning. At an “all-hands” meeting on Tuesday, staffers were told that no one senior is leaving or being asked to leave, according to a second source. That applies to McFarland and Michael Anton, who was Flynn's deputy for strategic communications. (A White House spokesperson didn't immediately respond to an inquiry about the expected departures.)

McFarland, a former Pentagon spokesperson and longtime Fox News national security analyst, was seen to be a potential stabilizing force against Flynn at the time of her hiring, with deep connections to the Republican foreign-policy sphere.

The exodus presents a new set of troubles for a body that has been plagued with staffing issues since the election of President Donald Trump. Just days before his inauguration, several key posts within the NSC — which as decision making has been consolidated at the White House has run the day-to-day operation of foreign policy— remained unfilled. Flynn, for his part, preferred hiring former military and intelligence officials to work under him, a trend that Trump has shown no signs of shaking.

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