President-elect Donald Trump is filling his National Security Council with several officials who served in his first administration.
Brian McCormack, a longtime energy adviser, and Andrew Peake, a veteran Middle East adviser, will take on senior roles on Trump's White House National Security Council, focusing on Iran and boosting domestic energy production, according to people familiar with the matter. There is a sign of increase. ,
The National Security Council is an advisory body composed of regional and subject matter experts that helps coordinate domestic and foreign policy.
The NSC's acting secretary will be Katherine Keller, according to multiple people familiar with the new appointments. Keller was deputy general counsel at the Commerce Department and deputy White House staff secretary during Trump's first term.
Trump nominates Florida Republican congressman Mike Waltz was appointed as his National Security Advisor Less than a week after the election. Waltz's congressional chief of staff, Micah Keuchel, will be a senior adviser and special assistant to the president, one of the sources said. Keuchel previously worked for the Republican Attorneys General Association and the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Peake is Waltz's congressional national security adviser and a former Army intelligence officer. In Trump's first term, Peake was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran and then became the NSC's Senior Director for Europe. He was removed from NSC after just three months during security check in 2020The allegations were baseless, one of the sources said, and Peake never lost his security clearance. He has a PhD in Russian and Iranian proxy warfare.
McCormack is known for having a deep understanding of energy policy, having served as a top aide at the Energy Department to then-Secretary Rick Perry and later in the Office of Management and Budget. He co-founded an organization that supports nuclear energy, including for military purposes.
McCormack was among several aides who refused to attend U.S. House hearings on Ukraine during the 2019 impeachment of Trump. Early in his career, McCormack was an aide to Vice President Dick Cheney and was in the West Wing on September 11, 2001.
Brian Hughes, one of the spokesmen for Trump's transition team, will be the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, according to the sources. And James Hewitt, Waltz's congressional communications director, will serve in a communications role in Trump's new NSC.
In a statement in November, the president-elect said Alex Wong, a longtime Asia adviser, would be deputy national security adviser, and sebastian gorka NSC will have a senior director for counter-terrorism.
NSC seats frequently change with the new chairperson. President Joe Biden's NSC is down to more than 300 people after Trump worked to shrink the group during his first term.