National Security Council rebuilding with aides aligned with MAGA agenda, sources say

The White House is starting to rebuild the National Security Council with aides top officials believe are staunchly aligned with President Trump’s agenda after six people were ousted earlier this month, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CBS News. 

Derek Harvey, a military intelligence analyst and retired U.S. Army colonel, is expected to be named senior director for intelligence, according to sources.

“Always, we’re letting go of people,” Mr. Trump told reporters about the firings of aides to National Security Adviser Mike Waltz in the wake of the Signal group chat controversy. “People that we don’t like, or people that we don’t think can do the job, or people that may have loyalties to somebody else.”

Havey would replace Brian Walsh, who was among four senior directors let go on April 3. In all, six aides were pushed out.

Retired Lt. Col. Michael Jensen, an Air Force veteran, is also likely to join the NSC, one of the sources said. Jensen was nominated in February for a top Pentagon job as assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict. Senior officials have recently discussed tapping him as Waltz’s senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs instead. 

That position has been unoccupied.

Harvey was forced out of the NSC during Mr. Trump’s first term by then-National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster over a difference in vision. Harvey oversaw Middle East affairs at the time.

Harvey later worked as a congressional aide to former Rep. Devin Nunes, then the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. 

House Democrats released phone messages that involved Harvey during the Mr. Trump’s first impeachment trial which focused on the alleged plan to further his political prospects by getting Ukraine to launch investigations into his likely political challenger in 2020, then-former Vice President Joe Biden.

Harvey was a vocal Trump defender during the impeachment inquiries.