An already shallow national security bench is getting thinner for the Trump White House as government workers and national security hands worry over possible blowback from accepting a job with the incoming administration.
“Normally you’d be attracting the best and brightest at the beginning of an administration, but people are nervous,” one US intelligence official said, requesting anonymity to discuss the transition. “Is this a sure bet, or is this a house of cards that’s going to fall apart?”
The Trump transition team has already started farming Capitol Hill staffers and Washington think tanks for potential administration gigs, but there’s a running hesitation over what a position with the Trump White House even looks like, and whether it could be kryptonite for future career advancement, particularly within the national security world.
“I just don’t know who’s going to run foreign policy, in terms of organizationally, and I also don’t know who the personnel will be. Of the people who are being discussed, none of them inspire much confidence,” said one think tank analyst, who declined an approach by the Trump campaign for a potential foreign policy position.
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