I spent almost two years working from a closet in the West Wing that was part of the national security adviser’s suite of offices. The Suite, as we called it, almost never slept. My boss, national security adviser Tom Donilon, and his staff worked around the clock to advance U.S. national security. I usually had a second dinner (cups of peanut M&Ms from the White House Mess were a favorite) around 9 p.m. each night so that I could plow through the pile of memos on my desk and read all of the intelligence that had come in while I was working during normal business hours.
Every national security adviser is different. Some, like Brent Scowcroft, see their role as honest broker, faithfully representing the views of top Cabinet members to help the president make informed decisions. Others, such as Henry Kissinger, tend to promote their own ideas more forcefully. But they all have had one thing in common: They put U.S. national security first. As far as I know, no national security adviser has ever put his or her personal business interests ahead of the country’s.
Michael Flynn changed all of that. A federal judge may have granted him a reprieve at Tuesday’s sentencing hearing—it was rescheduled to March—but let’s recall what Trump’s first national security adviser stands accused of doing.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member