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 Atlantic Council is an American think tank in the field of international affairs,favoring Atlanticism,founded in 1961. It manages sixteen regional centers and functional programs related to international security and global economic prosperity. It is headquartered in Washington,D.C. It is a member of the Atlantic Treaty Association.
John Robert Bolton is an American attorney,diplomat,Republican consultant,and political commentator. He served as the 25th United States Ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006,and as the 26th United States National Security Advisor from 2018 to 2019.
Frances M. "Fran" Fragos Townsend is an American lawyer and business executive who served as Homeland Security Advisor to United States President George W. Bush from 2004 to 2007,and was formerly the executive vice president for corporate affairs,corporate secretary,and compliance chief officer for Activision Blizzard,until September of 2022,due to Microsoft acquiring Blizzard for $75 billion. She previously served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism. In 2008,Townsend joined CNN as a contributor,but later switched over to CBS where she is a national security analyst for them. Townsend was president of the Counter Extremism Project.
John Owen Brennan is a former American intelligence officer who served as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from March 2013 to January 2017. He served as chief counterterrorism advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama,with the title Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism,and Assistant to the President. Previously,he advised Obama on foreign policy and intelligence issues during the 2008 election campaign and presidential transition.
The United States Deputy National Security Advisor is a member of the Executive Office of the President of the United States and the United States National Security Council,serving under the President's National Security Advisor.
Howard Anthony Schmidt was a partner with Tom Ridge in Ridge Schmidt Cyber LLC,a consultancy company in the field of cybersecurity. He was the Cyber-Security Coordinator of the Obama Administration,operating in the Executive Office of the President of the United States. He announced his retirement from that position on May 17,2012,effective at the end of the month.
Robert Charles O'Brien Jr. is an American attorney who served as the twenty-seventh United States national security advisor from 2019 to 2021. He was the fourth and final person to hold the position during the presidency of Donald Trump. He is currently the chairman of the American Global Strategies firm advising companies on international politics,the U.S. government,and crisis management.
Thomas Edward Donilon is an American lawyer,business executive,and former government official who served as the 22nd National Security Advisor in the Obama administration from 2010 to 2013. Donilon also worked in the Carter and Clinton administrations,including as chief of staff of the U.S. State Department. He is now Chairman of the BlackRock Investment Institute,the firm's global think tank.
Melissa Hathaway is a leading expert in cyberspace policy and cybersecurity. She served under two U.S. presidential administrations from 2007 to 2009,including more than 8 months at the White House,spearheading the Cyberspace Policy Review for President Barack Obama after leading the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI) for President George W. Bush. She is President of Hathaway Global Strategies LLC,a Senior Fellow and member of the Board of Regents at Potomac Institute for Policy Studies,a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Canada,and a non-resident Research Fellow at the Kosciuszko Institute in Poland. She was previously a Senior Adviser at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center.
Brian H. Hook is an American diplomat,lawyer and government official. In 2021,he joined Cerberus Capital Management as vice chairman for global investments. He is an adjunct professor at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy.
Stephen Miller is an American political advisor who served as a senior advisor for policy and White House director of speechwriting to President Donald Trump. His politics have been described as far-right and anti-immigration. He was previously the communications director for then-Senator Jeff Sessions. He was also a press secretary for U.S. representatives Michele Bachmann and John Shadegg.
Joseph Keith Kellogg Jr. is a former United States government official and a retired lieutenant general in the United States Army. He previously served as the National Security Advisor to Vice President Mike Pence,and as the Executive Secretary and Chief of Staff of the United States National Security Council in the Trump administration. He served as National Security Advisor on an acting basis following the resignation of Michael T. Flynn.
The Russian government interfered in the 2016 United States elections with the goals of sabotaging the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton,boosting the presidential campaign of Donald Trump,and increasing political and social discord in the United States. According to the U.S. intelligence community,the operation—code named Project Lakhta—was ordered directly by Russian president Vladimir Putin. The "hacking and disinformation campaign" to damage Clinton and help Trump became the "core of the scandal known as Russiagate". The 448-page Mueller Report,made public in April 2019,examined over 200 contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials but concluded that there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates.
The Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism,commonly referred to as the Homeland Security Advisor and formerly the Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism,is a senior aide in the National Security Council,based in the West Wing of the White House,who serves as principal advisor to the President of the United States on homeland security and counterterrorism issues.
Robert E. Joyce is an American cybersecurity official who served as special assistant to the President and Cybersecurity Coordinator on the U.S. National Security Council. He also began serving as White House Homeland Security Adviser to President Donald Trump on an acting basis after the resignation of Tom Bossert from April 10,2018 to May 31,2018. He completed his detail to the White House in May 2018 and returned to the National Security Agency,where he served as the Senior Advisor to the Director NSA for Cyber Security Strategy,until July 2019 when he went to London and served in the US Embassy as the NSA's senior cryptologic representative to the UK. Joyce previously performed as acting Deputy Homeland Security Advisor since October 13,2017. On January 15,2021 the NSA announced that Joyce would replace Anne Neuberger as its Director of Cybersecurity.
This is a chronology of significant events in 2016 and 2017 related to the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies during the Trump presidential transition and the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Following the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016,this article begins on November 8 and ends with Donald Trump and Mike Pence being sworn into office on January 20,2017. The investigations continued in the first and second halves of 2017,the first and second halves of 2018,the first and second halves of 2019,2020,and 2021.
This is a timeline of events related to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.
The core White House staff appointments,and most Executive Office of the President officials generally,are not required to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate,with a handful of exceptions. There are about 4,000 positions in the Executive Office of the President.
In 2020,a major cyberattack suspected to have been committed by a group backed by the Russian government penetrated thousands of organizations globally including multiple parts of the United States federal government,leading to a series of data breaches. The cyberattack and data breach were reported to be among the worst cyber-espionage incidents ever suffered by the U.S.,due to the sensitivity and high profile of the targets and the long duration in which the hackers had access. Within days of its discovery,at least 200 organizations around the world had been reported to be affected by the attack,and some of these may also have suffered data breaches. Affected organizations worldwide included NATO,the U.K. government,the European Parliament,Microsoft and others.
