Hold more gatherings....

Cabinet chiefs feel shut out of Bolton’s ‘efficient’ policy process

Defense Secretary James Mattis has gone so far as to draft a letter requesting the national security adviser hold more gatherings of agency and department chiefs.

By NAHAL TOOSI, BRYAN BENDER and ELIANA JOHNSON

National security adviser John Bolton's effort to simplify the administration’s decision-making process is frustrating Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary James Mattis and causing confusion about the United States’ position on major issues including Russia, according to officials familiar with the situation.

Mattis has gone so far as to draft a letter to Bolton requesting that he hold more gatherings of agency and department chiefs “to smooth the bubble” on thorny issues ranging from U.S. policy in Syria to North Korea, according to one senior administration official. In particular, senior officials are concerned about the dearth of “principals committee” meetings scheduled by Bolton, officials say. Principals committee meetings are traditionally key forums for relevant Cabinet bosses to prepare and recommend policy options for the president.

Of special concern is the U.S. relationship with Russia, especially since Trump’s July 16 meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin with only translators present. Officials across U.S. agencies have been trying to figure out what Trump and Putin discussed. Russian officials, meanwhile, have taken advantage of the U.S. confusion to make a series of announcements about what they say Trump and Putin agreed upon. Bolton did not convene any principals committee meetings to discuss the Trump-Putin summit ahead of time, and hasn't held any such meetings on the issue since the event took place.

Bolton is taking steps that could assuage these concerns, convening at least three high-level meetings this week to tackle U.S. policy on Iran, North Korea and election security.

Defenders say Bolton, who held top national security positions during the George W. Bush administration, is simply cutting unnecessary bureaucratic red tape, pushing the nitty-gritty discussions to lower levels.

“He doesn’t want to ‘meeting’ an issue to death,” said one White House official. “He wants to make the bureaucratic process more efficient so that decisions can be made at the principals level.”

But across the U.S. national security establishment, there’s a growing sense of a breakdown in the policy process since Bolton took over the National Security Council on April 9.

“The rest of the government doesn’t really know what the policy is. There’s no record, there’s no decision form. There’s nothing out there to fall back on,” said Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO who is now president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. “Countries that we deal with don’t really know what our policy is because people in the government don’t know.”

A person familiar with the situation, noting Bolton’s reputation as a fierce bureaucratic knife-fighter, added: “There is a sense that Bolton isn’t necessarily representing the full views of State and the Pentagon regarding some issues to the president.”

This week, Bolton has scheduled a formal National Security Council meeting — so-called because the president sits in on the gathering along with the agency and department chiefs — to talk about election security, two White House officials said. The meeting will likely tackle the subject of Russia, which U.S. intelligence officials say interfered in the 2016 campaign to help Trump win. The president has downplayed this conclusion while trying to gain favor with Putin, recently drawing bipartisan condemnation for his comments on the subject during a joint press conference with the Russian leader.

Bolton also has scheduled two principals’ committee meetings to discuss Iran and North Korea this week.

The National Security Council generally doesn’t publicize the meetings it convenes, and not all NSC staffers are necessarily told about each one, making it difficult to nail down statistics. But current and former NSC staffers say there’s no question the number of formal high-level committee meetings has dropped sharply since Bolton took the helm. Bolton replaced H.R. McMaster, whom Trump fired and who regularly held such gatherings.

The main meetings in question are gatherings of the “PC,” or principals committee, which includes Cabinet members who deal with national security issues. There also appears to be fewer meetings of the “DC,” or “deputies committee,” which includes the No. 2 officials from key departments and agencies, according to current and former NSC staffers.

Ordinarily, there are one or two principals’ committee meetings held each week; in the run up to a major event, there may be more, Daalder said. Under former President Barack Obama, national security adviser Susan Rice would sometimes hold even more principals committee meetings, which annoyed some officials who felt the NSC was micromanaging other departments.

In principals' committee meetings, top aides to the president can discuss and hash out key aspects of major policy issues. The meetings also typically produce a record for those at lower levels in an attempt to put everyone on the same page about final decisions.

“Through the process of debate and deliberation, ideas get pressure-tested, and some are dismissed as not feasible or not wise,” said Brian McKeon, a former top NSC official. “The process also has the virtue of improving support and buy-in from departments and agencies. If the leadership of the agencies believe they’ve been given a chance to have their say and contribute to the decision, in theory you’ll have less griping, leaking or efforts to re-litigate decisions.”

A White House official defended Bolton’s approach, saying he is convening fewer principals committee meetings because he wants more of the granular discussions to take place at lower levels. The official added that Bolton is emulating a model used by Brent Scowcroft, who earned a reputation as one of the most effective national security advisers in U.S. history during stints under Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush.

Bolton’s No. 2, Mira Ricardel, has convened at least two dozen deputies committee meetings, said the White House official, who would not say how many principals’ committee meetings have been held. The official added that top aides to the president often meet in other, sometimes informal settings, where they can discuss policy. For instance, Bolton has a weekly breakfast with Mattis and Pompeo, the White House official said.

Other observers noted that even though Scowcroft may have tried to be judicious in his use of principals committee meetings, he still held them regularly, especially in the run-up to major events. In fact, Scowcroft is credited with establishing the modern NSC structure that includes the principals committee.

Of course, Mattis and Pompeo have their own lines to Trump, so they can share their views directly with the president. Not having principals’ meetings, however, deprives them of a forum to raise concerns in a way that can openly influence their peers, critics said.

“Each principal on the NSC brings his own department’s own specialist knowledge on the trade-offs of each option and how their team can help execute it,” said Frances Z. Brown, a former NSC official now with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “You need all voices at the table in order to choose the most effective policy.”

Some analysts wondered whether Bolton has had fewer principals committee meetings in part because he’s trying to reduce the possibility the discussions will get leaked to the media. Bolton is also known to be a voracious reader and NSC staffers are expected to regularly provide his office with updates on their subjects.

Bolton’s short tenure has also been an unusually busy stretch for Trump and his aides, involving significant travel. Aside from Putin, Trump has also met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore and the leaders of NATO and other allied countries in recent summits.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, for one, has barely been in Washington the past few weeks. Still, even when Cabinet leaders travel, they are equipped to dial in to principal meetings if the national security adviser requests it, people familiar with the process say.

The summit was Kim was a historic, unprecedented event, but Bolton did not hold a principals’ committee in the run-up to it, according to two senior administration officials.

Pompeo’s frustration by the lack of principals committee meetings was confirmed by a senior administration official. But State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert dismissed the idea that there's a problem.

“Secretary Pompeo speaks frequently with the president, vice president, and his fellow Cabinet members every day," Nauert said in a statement. "He constantly confers with national security adviser Bolton and the entire national security team. He is leading the implementation of the president’s foreign policy priorities, and is able to provide his viewpoints to top government officials.”

Bolton also has not held a town hall for NSC staffers. Some say this is a missed opportunity because such a gathering could help improve morale within the NSC, which took a hit after Trump fired the well-regarded McMaster to make way for Bolton.

"He's a jovial, funny guy," an NSC staffer said of Bolton. "But not a lot of people get face-time with him."

The White House official insisted that Bolton goes out of his way to talk to staffers, saying that once he took over as national security adviser he visited every office to meet his team face-to-face and that he has daily meetings with staffers.

McMaster was keen on having a strong, robust decision-making process, which included regular meetings at all levels. He held at least one, and sometimes two, principals' committee meetings per week, a former NSC official said. But that devotion to process that may have hurt his standing with Trump, who is known to prefer a more free-flowing, improvisational approach to decision-making.

Some analysts and former officials said Bolton may have decided to ease up on the number of meetings at high levels because Trump isn't necessarily interested in being presented with an array of options.

"He doesn’t care about formal process. He doesn’t care about advice," Daalder said of Trump. "He’s not looking for a formal process that brings everyone together with options because he already knows what he wants to do."