Ex-Breitbart staffer booted from National Security Council as far-right nationalists lose influence

Former Breitbart.com columnist Tera Dahl is giving up her seat on the National Security Council (NSC) amid fierce internecine squabbles at the White House, said BuzzFeed News on Thursday.

Dahl was ousted from her position as deputy chief of the NSC and reassigned to a position outside the White House, said three sources to BuzzFeed's John Hudson, who wrote, "The move frees up National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster to install another staffer of his choosing in his drive to reshape the NSC to his liking."

Dahl came to the White House as part of Trump's transition team along with other former Breitbart staffers like Stephen Bannon, Stephen Miller and Sebastian Gorka. The group formed a hard-right, nationalist contingent who positioned themselves in opposition to the so-called "globalist" contingent led by people like McMaster, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn.

“This White House has been characterized from the start by deep divergences in the foreign policy approaches of senior officials,” said Jeff Rathke of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a foreign policy think tank.

"At the moment, the two camps are bitterly fighting over whether to deploy more troops to Afghanistan, pull the US out of NAFTA, tighten immigration rules, and designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization -- and over an array of other critical policy options under review," Hudson wrote.

“Tera Dahl has done exemplary work both on the transition and in the first months of the Trump administration getting the National Security Council staffed up and running from the chief of staff's office,” said White House spokesman Michael Anton. “It was always her intent to move into a policy role once this task was completed.”

Fervent Trump supporter and aspiring right-wing provocateur Jack Posobiec raged on Medium.com that Dahl's exit from the NSC is part of a plot by McMaster and his aide Megan Badasch. Posobiec blames Badasch for a number of leaks pertaining to the NSC and says Dahl's ouster is the result of Dahl's discovery of "computer logs pointing Badasch’s office as leak of transcripts."

Trump's performance thus far on his European trip would seem to indicate that he is heeding McMaster's prompting, at least for now. He has spoken out against Russian and praised NATO's collective defense strategy.

Trump's Stephen Miller-penned speech during his last European trip caused consternation and disgust among NATO leaders due to its isolationist, exceptionalist bent. One attendee called the entire Trump visit a "sh*tshow."

Trump hopes to improve upon that performance on this trip, particularly with regards to a planned bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.

Hudson posted a stream of tweets about the announcement: