Richard Higgins (September 18, 1974 – February 23, 2022) was an American counter-terrorism analyst who served as the Director for Strategic Planning of the National Security Council in the Trump administration in 2017. He was removed by National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster after warning in a memo of a deep state plot to remove the president. [1] [2] [3]
Higgins earned a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from Tufts University. [4] After college, he served as a specialist in an Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit in the United States Army. After serving in the army, he went on to work for the United States Department of Defense. [5] As a civilian working for the Department of Defense, he attended the National Defense University (NDU), studying security strategy and counter-terrorism and received a master's degree. [5] [6] He eventually became the National Defense University's first civilian chair. [5] Higgins later served as the Vice President of Unconstrained Analytics. [4]
Some months after being appointed to serve in the National Security Council by National Security Advisor Michael Flynn in early 2017, Higgins wrote a seven-page memo titled "POTUS and Political Warfare" [7] which claimed that a cabal of deep state actors were conspiring against Trump, which included the mainstream media, academia, global corporatists and bankers, the Democratic Party leadership, the Republican Party leadership, and Islamists. [8] [9] Trump was reportedly "furious" after learning of Higgins' forced departure by Flynn's replacement, H.R. McMaster. [8]
In 2018, Higgins and retired CIA officer Brad Johnson, backed by about a dozen intelligence and special operations community members, published a conspiracy theory that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and antifa were involved in the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. [10] [11]
Higgins co-authored the book Re-Remembering the Mis-Remembered Left: The Left's Strategy and Tactics To Transform America with Stephen Coughlin in 2019. [12]
In 2020, the White House reportedly attempted to push the Department of Defense to hire Higgins under its nominee for the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy at the Pentagon, Anthony Tata. [13] [14]
Higgins died on February 23, 2022. He left behind his wife and four children. [5]
The United States National Security Council (NSC) is the principal forum used by the president of the United States for consideration of national security, military, and foreign policy matters. Based in the White House, it is part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, and composed of senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials.
The United States National Security Council was established following the coordination of the foreign policy system in the United States in 1947 under the National Security Act of 1947. An administrative agency guiding national security issues was found to be needed since world war II. The national Security Act of 1947 provides the council with powers of setting up and adjusting foreign policies and reconcile diplomatic and military establishments. It established a Secretary of Defence, a National Military Establishment which serves as central intelligence agency and a National Security Resources Board. The specific structure of the United States National Security Council can be different depending on the elected party of the time. Different party emphasize on different aspects of policy making and administrating.
Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is an American defense policy analyst who founded the far-right anti-Muslim group, Center for Security Policy (CSP), serving as its first president, and a former presidential appointee under President Ronald Reagan. He has been described as an anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist. In the 1970s and 1980s, he worked for the federal government in multiple posts, including as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy from 1983 to 1987, and seven months as Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs during the Reagan administration. He founded the CSP in 1988, serving as its president until 2023 and thereafter as executive chairman.
Douglas Abbott Macgregor is an American retired colonel, government official, author, consultant, and political commentator.
Robert Leon Wilkie Jr. is an American lawyer and government official who served as the United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs from 2018 to 2021, during the Trump administration. He was previously Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness during the Trump administration, from November 2017 to July 2018. A Naval intelligence officer in the Reserve, he was Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs in the administration of President George W. Bush.
According to an American political conspiracy theory, the deep state is a clandestine network of members of the federal government, working in conjunction with high-level financial and industrial entities and leaders, to exercise power alongside or within the elected United States government.
Ezra Cohen, also known as Ezra Cohen-Watnick, is an American intelligence official who served as the acting under secretary of defense for intelligence during the Trump Administration. He previously served as the acting assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, national security adviser to the United States attorney general and as a former senior director for intelligence programs for the United States National Security Council (NSC).
Mira Radielovic Ricardel, is an American businesswoman and former government official.
Jack Michael Posobiec III is an American alt-right political activist, television correspondent and presenter, conspiracy theorist, and former United States Navy intelligence officer.
Antifa is a left-wing anti-fascist and anti-racist political movement in the United States. It consists of a highly decentralized array of autonomous groups that use nonviolent direct action, incivility, or violence to achieve their aims. Antifa political activism includes non-violent methods such as poster and flyer campaigns, mutual aid, speeches, protest marches, and community organizing. Some who identify as antifa also use tactics involving digital activism, doxing, harassment, physical violence, and property damage. Supporters of the movement aim to combat far-right extremists, including neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
Earl G. Matthews is an American government official and attorney who held senior positions within the Department of the Army and at the White House during the administration of President Donald Trump. Matthews was a member of Trump's Department of Defense transition team and was appointed as a Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, James N. Mattis on January 20, 2017. Matthews was subsequently appointed as the Principal Deputy General Counsel of the Army on June 21, 2019. He served as Acting General Counsel of the Army from June 21, 2017, until James E. McPherson was sworn in as General Counsel on January 2, 2018.
Alyssa Farah Griffin is an American political strategist and television personality. She was the White House director of strategic communications and Assistant to the President in 2020 during the presidency of Donald Trump. In addition to appearing on CNN as a commentator, she is a co-host of the talk show The View, for which she received a nomination for a Daytime Emmy Award.
The Trump–Ukraine scandal was a political scandal that arose primarily from the discovery of U.S. President Donald Trump's attempts to coerce Ukraine into investigating his political rival Joe Biden and thus potentially damage Biden's campaign for the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination. Trump enlisted surrogates in and outside his administration, including personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr, to pressure Ukraine and other governments to cooperate in supporting and legitimizing the bogus Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory and other conspiracy theories concerning US politics. Trump blocked payment of a congressionally-mandated $400 million military aid package, in an attempt to obtain quid pro quo cooperation from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Contacts were established between the White House and government of Ukraine, culminating in a call between Trump and Zelenskyy on July 25, 2019.
Kashyap Pramod "Kash" Patel is an American attorney and former government official. He served as a U.S. National Security Council official, senior advisor to the acting Director of National Intelligence, and chief of staff to the acting United States secretary of defense during the Trump presidency. A member of the Republican Party, Patel previously worked as a senior aide to congressman Devin Nunes when he chaired the House Intelligence Committee. He was previously a federal public defender, a federal prosecutor working on national security cases, and a legal liaison to the United States Armed Forces.
Robert S. Spalding III is a retired United States Air Force brigadier general. He currently serves as a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. His work focuses on U.S.–China relations, economic and national security, and the Asia-Pacific military balance.
Christopher Charles Miller is an American retired United States Army Special Forces colonel who served as acting United States secretary of defense from November 9, 2020, to January 20, 2021. He previously served as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center from August 10 to November 9, 2020. Before his civilian service in the Department of Defense, Miller was a Green Beret, commanding 5th Special Forces Group in Iraq and Afghanistan, and later spent time as a defense contractor.
TNet is a secure top-secret-level intranet system in the White House, notably used to record information about telephone and video calls between the President of the United States and other world leaders. TNet is connected to Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System (JWICS), which is used more widely across different offices in the White House. Contained within TNet is an even more secure system known as NSC Intelligence Collaboration Environment (NICE).
Stephen C. Coughlin is an American lawyer and former Joint Chiefs of Staff intelligence analyst who was a contract employee providing advice and analysis at the Pentagon, until he was let go in 2008 under controversial circumstances, reportedly owing to his views on the nature of Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood.
There are some conspiracy theories about the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, the deadliest mass shooting by one gunman in American history. These hypotheses offer alternate explanations to the official version of the incident, including speculation about the involvement of shooters other than the identified perpetrator, Stephen Paddock.