One week after Omarosa Manigault Newman left the White House under suspicious circumstances – she was reportedly escorted off the property when she tried to enter the residence after being fired by Chief of Staff John Kelly – two more senior Trump staffers are on their way out.
Last night, both Deputy Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn and White House National Economic Council Deputy Director Jeremy Katz said they would step down early next year. Dearborn told Fox News that his departure is “bittersweet” because he loves working for Trump. But he said the time was right following the tax bill victory. According to the Washington Post, the departures are the latest indication that the administration is in the middle of a "churn" of senior staffers, although the WaPo is known to have a certain "angle" when reporting on the Trump admin.
Dearborn oversaw the White House’s political operation, public outreach and legislative affairs. An exact date of departure has not yet been set, and he will stay in the position for the first month or two of the next year.
Meanwhile, Katz, a Bush administration veteran who worked as NEC Director Gary Cohn’s lieutenant, played a central role in coordinating the administration’s push to overhaul the tax code. He was also one of four people officially advising Trump on the nomination for Federal Reserve chair.
Rick Dearborn
The deputy chief of staff is the third high-profile Trump official to depart the White House this month. In addition to Manigault Newman, deputy national security adviser Dina Powell, a driving force behind the Trump administration’s Middle East policy, said she would leave early next year. Unlike Omarosa, who ominously hinted that she has a "profound story" to tell about her time in the White House during an interview with Michael Strahan following her departure, Powell is said to be leaving the White House on good terms, and has worked out an arrangement with President Trump to continue advising the administration on Middle East-related policy.
Like Powell, Dearborn is departing on his own terms. According to Fox News, he is considered well-liked by the top brass at the White House, including Chief of Staff John Kelly, who tried to keep him. Fox News spoke to several White House officials late Thursday who said Dearborn was part of the main echelon of top senior aides.
Still, it’s worth noting that Dearborn entered the Trump orbit through Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Dearborn served as Session's chief of staff when he was a senator from Alabama. While Sessions has managed to hang on to his job despite Trump's simmering resentment over Session's decision to recuse himself from the Russia probe, the possibility that he could be asked to resign has never seemed all that remote.
Of course, Trump is a famously demanding and exacting boss - something Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie discussed in detail in their new book, "Let Trump Be Trump." Indeed, in the book, Lewandowski said he often questioned why he continued working for such an unsympathetic boss. Of course, this prior experience hasn't stopped Lewandowski from seeking a job in the West Wing. And given the recent turnover, Politico suggested that Lewandowski could soon move from being an informal adviser to Trump to some kind of more formal role.
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Anyway, with Dearborn and Katz' exits, we can add two more names to the list of high-profile Trump administration departures:
- Sally Yates
- Michael Flynn
- Katie Walsh
- Preet Bharara
- James Comey
- Michael Dubke
- Walter Shaub
- Mark Corralo
- Sean Spicer
- Micheal Short
- Reince Priebus
- Anthony Scaramucci
- Steve Bannon
- Sebastian Gorka
- Tom Price
- Dina Powell
- Omarosa Manigault Newman
- Jeremy Katz
- Rick Dearborn