US election: Donald Trump pushes out respected national security expert Mike Rogers from his transition team
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US President-elect Donald Trump has jettisoned a respected national security expert from his transition team in a sign that he may be settling on loyalists to staff his administration.
Key points:
- Sources say there is a 'purge' of moderate Republicans in Trump's transition team
- Rudy Giuliani and John Bolton are favourites for Secretary of State
- Both have expressed hardline views on foreign policy
Mike Rogers, a former US congressman from Michigan who had been mentioned as a possible pick for CIA director, has been pushed out of the running.
Mr Trump's advisers believed he did not pursue Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton aggressively enough when he headed the House of Representatives intelligence committee, a source familiar with the decision said.
Others characterised the sudden departure of Mr Rogers as part of a "purge" of relatively moderate Republicans who had staffed the transition team under New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who on Friday was abruptly replaced as head of the team by Vice-President-elect Mike Pence.
Mr Pence has not yet filled out paperwork required by law to work on the transition with Democratic President Barack Obama's outgoing administration, the White House said.
With fewer than 70 days until his January 20 inauguration, the Republican President-elect has little time to settle on Cabinet members and other senior appointees.
Concerns for a confrontational foreign policy team
Some current US intelligence officials expressed worry that Mr Rogers' departure would mean the President-elect was leaning toward more confrontational figures to lead his foreign policy team.
In Congress, Mr Rogers led an investigation into the September 11, 2012 attacks by militants on US facilities in Libya that killed the US ambassador and three other Americans.
The probe dismissed many of the conspiracy theories that had been circulated by critics of Mrs Clinton, who was Secretary of State at the time of the attacks.
Mr Trump's team viewed the investigation as a whitewash, according to one source familiar with the operation.
Trump loyalists Rudy Giuliani and former UN Ambassador John Bolton are being considered for secretary of state, according to sources close to the Trump camp.
Mr Giuliani was New York's mayor at the time of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks and is known as a hardliner on national security matters, while Mr Bolton is also a foreign policy hawk who said last year the United States should bomb Iran to halt its nuclear program.
Retired Lieutenant General Mike Flynn, a leading candidate for Mr Trump's national security adviser, has called for the United States to pull back from protecting long-time allies such as South Korea and Japan.
Mr Trump has filled two positions so far, selecting Republican Party insider Reince Priebus to be White House chief of staff and appointing Steve Bannon as chief strategist.
Assad 'very cautious in judging' Trump's Syria aims
Syrian President Bashar al Assad told a Portuguese television channel Damascus would have to "wait and see" if Mr Trump would change Washington's policy on Syria, but that he was ready to cooperate with him in fighting militants.
In his first comments on Mr Trump's election victory, Mr Assad said the Republican leader had made promising comments on the need to battle Islamists in Syria's war but "can he deliver?".
"We don't have a lot of expectations because the US administration is not only about the president ... So we have to wait and see," Mr Assad said.
Mr Trump has struck a different tone to current US policy on some aspects of the multi-sided Syrian conflict, where the United States with allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia, has backed rebels fighting to topple Mr Assad.
The President-elect has questioned the wisdom of backing rebels, played down the US goal of getting Mr Assad to leave power, and noted that while he did not like him, "Assad is killing [Islamic State]" with Iran and Russia.
"It's still dubious whether he can do or live up to his promises or not," Mr Assad said.
"That is why we are very cautious in judging him ... But let's say if he is going to fight the terrorists of course we are going to be [an] ally, natural ally with the Russians, with the Iranians," he added.
Reuters
Topics: us-elections, world-politics, united-states
