Former national security adviser H.R. McMaster said on Wednesday some of his colleagues at the White House posed “a danger to the Constitution.”
During a conference in Washington, D.C., McMaster described three “categories” of people who worked for President Trump. McMaster said he was in the batch “who were there to serve” the elected president and help realize his decisions and policies.
The other two groups, McMaster said, had agendas of their own.
The second group, he said are people “who are not there to give the president options. They’re there to try to manipulate the situation based on their agenda, not the president’s agenda.”
The third group “cast themselves in the role of saving the country — you know, the world — from the president,” he said. “I think those latter two categories of people are actually a danger to the Constitution of the United States,” he said, adding that nobody elects generals, intelligence and law enforcement officers, and diplomats to make policy.
McMaster is a retired Army lieutenant general who served as national security adviser from February 2017 to April 2018. He was replaced by former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton.
Since leaving the Trump administration, McMaster has spoken out about his time in the White House. For instance, after it was reported former National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn removed a trade-related document from Trump’s desk to stop him from signing it, McMaster defended the action, describing it was “wholly appropriate.”
McMaster also took heat for the leaks from the West Wing. He issued a memo to staff about leaks that was later leaked to the press.
