Trump’s Chief Adviser on Homeland Security Is Forced Out

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s shake-up of its national security ranks widened on Tuesday, with the ouster of Thomas P. Bossert as Trump’s chief adviser on homeland security.

Bossert is the first major casualty of John R. Bolton, the president’s new national security adviser, according to current and former officials. They said Bolton, who took office on Monday, fired him and moved some of his duties directly under the National Security Council.

While Bolton was expected to clean house at the National Security Council, Bossert’s ouster came as a surprise — at least to him. On Sunday, he defended President Donald Trump’s immigration policies on the ABC program “This Week,” then traveled to a conference in Sea Island, Georgia, where he gave a spirited defense of the way the White House makes policy.

In a statement, the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said the president thanked Bossert, 43, “for his patriotic service.”

“The president is grateful for Tom’s commitment to the safety and security of our great country,” Sanders said. “Tom led the White House’s efforts to protect the homeland from terrorist threats, strengthen our cyberdefenses and respond to an unprecedented series of natural disasters.”

Bossert, a lawyer who served in the George W. Bush administration, made a name for himself as the public face of the White House response to hurricanes that tore through Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico. His briefings, lucid and laden with statistics, were a counterpoint to the chaos that was seen as pervading other parts of the White House.

But administration officials said Bossert chafed at that part of his job, preferring to get involved in higher-level policy issues on counterterrorism and cyberwarfare. Bossert, they said, aspired to a broader portfolio — even that of national security adviser — which was not in the cards.

“You won’t believe this, but this White House seems to function just about the same as every other White House,” he said at the conference in Georgia. “At the end of the day, the only thing that creates instability or the perception of it is, A, the coverage, and B, the turnover.” Bossert spoke extensively about his plans for the coming year.

Some colleagues viewed him as highhanded and faulted his handling of cybersecurity issues for being plodding and overly cautious. Others said he recognized the legal complexities raised by offensive cyberoperations and was determined to conduct a thorough policy process before making decisions.

Bossert was one of the few high-ranking figures in Trump’s White House who had earned bipartisan praise.

“Tom’s departure is a loss for this administration,” said Jeh Johnson, who was secretary of homeland security under President Barack Obama. “I met him during the transition and was impressed. He struck me as a conscientious, levelheaded public servant.”

Bossert, these officials said, had a strained relationship with Bolton’s predecessor, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, and with Kirstjen Nielsen, who served as a deputy to the White House chief of staff, John F. Kelly, before becoming the secretary of homeland security.

Bolton, an official said, has moved the counterterrorism and cybersecurity portfolios under the National Security Council. Rob Joyce, the cybersecurity coordinator on the council, who was Bossert’s deputy, will take his place on an acting basis.

Joyce, a veteran of the National Security Agency, until last year ran the Tailored Access Operations unit, the nation’s premier group of hackers, which breaks into foreign government computer networks. Bossert stirred controversy during a recent meeting with members of the families of Americans who were detained and beheaded in Syria by Islamic State terrorists. He told them he hoped the United States would send two men recently captured in Syria, and suspected of imprisoning the Americans, to the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

That rankled some family members, who recently published an Op-Ed in The New York Times calling for these suspects to be given criminal trials in the United States or The Hague.

Bolton has yet to announce a major new appointment to the National Security Council. But he is making changes on multiple fronts. On Sunday, the director of strategic communications, Michael Anton, resigned under pressure.