President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team has reportedly denied it is dismissing the National Nuclear Security Administration’s top two officials, following reports earlier this week that the agency itself refuted.
Gizmodo reported Monday that NNSA Administrator Frank Klotz and Principal Deputy Administrator Madelyn Creedon were being dismissed from their current roles come Jan. 20, the day Trump will take office. An NNSA official told NS&D Monitor later that day that there have been no discussions between Trump’s transition team and any of NNSA’s political appointees on extending their public service past Inauguration Day.
On Tuesday, Politico quoted a transition team official saying, “There is no validity to this,” referring to the initial dismissal rumor. A source familiar with the NNSA on Tuesday agreed that Klotz and Creedon were likely not given any such formal notification and told NS&D Monitor that the incoming administration is still actively considering a couple names to fill the administrator role.
One of them is rumored to be Paul Longsworth, a Fluor executive and former NNSA deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation. Another name floated is Jay Cohen, a retired Navy admiral who served in the Department of Homeland Security.
Gizmodo has updated its story to say the transition team “has declined to ask” Klotz and Creedon to stay past Inauguration Day, and that an Energy Department source said both officials have indicated they may be willing to stay through the transition, if the Trump team requests it.
A separate source told NS&D Monitor on Monday that the departure of top-level political appointees has a limited impact on the work done at NNSA laboratories and with the support of career federal service workforce.
