Energy Secretary Rick Perry and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley have been named as regular attendees on the National Security Council’s Principals Committee, according to a new national security presidential memorandum.
The memo, published Wednesday in the Federal Register, notes the addition of those two positions as well as the reinstatement of intelligence officials, while dropping Trump chief strategist Stephen Bannon from the committee. Trump’s national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, is said to be responsible for the move.
The document revokes and replaces the president’s Jan. 28 directive that sparked controversy for giving Bannon a prominent role in shaping national security policy.
Adding Perry to the advisory committee indicates that the top steward of the nation’s nuclear arsenal may play an increasingly significant role in the administration’s approach to national security. The energy secretary was included as a regular member of the committee under the Obama administration.
The latest memo also adds the director of the Central Intelligence Agency to the committee, while naming the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as regular attendees – a status they held in the last administration that Trump’s January order had changed.
Other members of the Principals Committee remain the secretaries of state, treasury, defense, and homeland security; the attorney general; the president’s chief of staff; the national security adviser, and the homeland security adviser.
