Trump loyalist installed in top intelligence post on National Security Council
Michael Ellis, a deputy to White House lawyer John Eisenberg, started in the role on Monday.
A White House lawyer and former counsel to the House Intelligence Committee under Devin Nunes has been named senior director for intelligence on the National Security Council, the latest instance of President Donald Trump elevating a trusted loyalist to control the intelligence community.
Michael Ellis, a deputy to White House lawyer John Eisenberg, started in the role on Monday, according to a senior administration official and a former national security official. Ellis left the counsel’s office, so he won’t be dual-hatted with his new job.
The office of the director for intelligence serves as the day-to-day connective tissue between the intelligence community and the White House. Sensitive information coming in from the intelligence agencies will go to that office, especially if it is in hard copy form. The office also coordinates covert action activities between the White House and the intelligence community, and it’s where the NSC server is housed that stores the most sensitive classified information.
Marc Polymeropoulos, who served 26 years in the CIA before retiring from the agency’s Senior Intelligence Service in June 2019, said the position “traditionally has gone to a senior member of the intelligence community, such as the CIA, the State Department, or NSA. It was an apolitical position, coveted and also seen as highly career advancing.”
Polymeropoulos added that the role is particularly significant given it oversees critical intelligence community functions such as covert action. “Managing the interagency process on covert action as well as advising the national security adviser on this key aspect of American power took finesse and skill,” he said.
Ellis has been in the White House counsel’s office since 2017, and was reportedly one of the White House officials who showed Nunes intelligence reports that led to the congressman’s probe into surveillance of the Trump campaign team.
Ellis also featured in the Ukraine scandal, according to testimony heard by the House Intelligence Committee during the impeachment investigation.
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a decorated Army officer who served as the National Security Council’s director for Ukraine, told lawmakers in October that Ellis and Eisenberg were the ones who decided to move the record of Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky into the NSC’s top-secret codeword system—a server normally used to store highly classified material that only a small group of officials can access.
Vindman was one of the officials who listened to the call, in which Trump asked Zelensky to investigate the Bidens and Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election, and went to Eisenberg and Ellis afterward to register his concerns about the conversation. In early February, Vindman and his twin brother Yevgeny were fired from the NSC and sent back to the Pentagon. On Monday, the White House withdrew the nomination of Elaine McCusker, who had questioned the Ukraine aid freeze, to be the Pentagon’s comptroller.
The House Intelligence Committee sought Ellis’ testimony in the impeachment probe in November, but Ellis refused to appear for his scheduled deposition. Ellis was ultimately named in the House’s Articles of Impeachment against Trump, as one of nine administration officials who defied a House subpoena for testimony at Trump’s direction.
Ellis, reached for comment, referred POLITICO to the NSC press shop. An NSC spokesman said they don’t comment on personnel.
Ellis’ new job was previously held by a government career professional detailed to the NSC.