A former National Security Council aide who was ousted last year during a period of turnover on President Trump’s NSC has joined the Justice Department as an adviser to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Ezra Cohen-Watnick, a former liaison between the White House and the intelligence community, first entered the spotlight amid controversy in March 2017 over his reported contact with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif. Cohen-Watnick was named as the staffer who passed information to Nunes about potential surveillance abuses that occurred during the Obama administration, and Nunes later passed that information onto Trump, causing a firestorm that resulted in Nunes’ recusal from his panel’s Russia investigation.
But the former NSC aide will soon join Sessions’ team, a Justice Department official confirmed to the Washington Examiner.
Cohen-Watnick’s departure last fall came as H.R. McMaster, then Trump’s national security adviser, attempted to fill his team with new staffers and rotate out the people former national security adviser Michael Flynn had hired.
After Trump fired Flynn and brought in McMaster, his second national security adviser made a number of high-profile changes, including by pushing out Flynn’s deputy, K.T. McFarland.
Although the administration attempted to provide McFarland with a soft landing by naming her ambassador to Singapore, the nomination fell through after documents related to the Russia investigation cited her name in sensitive discussions.
Newly-appointed national security adviser John Bolton, who replaced McMaster this week, has already begun his own sweep of the NSC. Bolton reportedly played a role in pushing out Michael Anton, the council’s spokesman, on Monday as he seeks to bring new aides onto the team.