Security experts grilled on how they voted as major White House cull begins: insiders

Trump officials are ordering long-time National Security Council staff to divulge who they voted for in the 2024 election, according to a report Monday.

The Associated Press wrote that the career civil servants are being grilled about their voting history, political contributions and past posts they’ve made on social media that are deemed possibly critical of the incoming president.

Some of the officials are expecting to be booted from their jobs because of their answers, the report said.

Trump’s national security adviser Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) has previously said he wants the NSC cleared of anybody not openly supportive of Trump.

The AP warned the move will likely cut significant expertise from Trump’s team on day one.

“Given everything going on in the world, making sure you have in place a team that is up to speed, and, you know, ready to continue serving at 12:01, 12:02, 12:03 p.m. on the 20th is really important,” Jake Sullivan, the current White House national security adviser, warned on Friday.

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Vetting started last week, the AP’s sources said. Many of those now threatened had been told weeks earlier to expect to remain in their roles.

But Waltz said last week on Breitbart that “everybody is going to resign at 12:01 on January 20.”

A Trump official told the AP it was “entirely appropriate” to want the council staffed with loyalists. It advises the president on national security and foreign policy. Experts usually continue from one administration to the next to maintain a high level of institutional knowledge and expertise.

“When they are selected to come over, they’re not selected based on their political affiliation or their policy opinions, they’re selected based on their experience and capacity and so we have a real diversity of people in terms of their views, their politics, their backgrounds,” Sullivan said.

He added that Biden kept most of his NSC staff from the previous Trump administration.

“Those folks were awesome,” he said. “They were really good.”