White House Official Floated Withdrawing U.S. Forces to Please Putin
https://www.thedailybeast.com/white-house-official-floated-withdrawing-us-forces-to-please-putin
A senior National Security Council official proposed withdrawing some U.S. military forces from Eastern Europe as an overture to Vladimir Putin during the early days of the Trump administration, according to a former administration official in the room with him.
While the proposal was ultimately not adopted, it is the first known case of senior aides to Donald Trump seeking to reposition U.S. military forces to please Putinsomething that smelled, to a colleague, like a return on Russias election-time investment in President Trump. The White House did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast's request for comment.
The official who offered the proposal, a deputy assistant to Trump for strategic planning, mused in February 2017 about withdrawing U.S. troops close to Russian borders as part of a strategy proposal to refram[e] our interests within the context of a new relationship with Russia, the former official told The Daily Beast, who heard this directly from the official, Kevin Harrington.
Harrington is the NSCs senior official for strategic planning. He had neither military experience nor significant government experience before joining the White House. But he had an influential credential: as a managing director for the Thiel Macro hedge fund, he was close to Trump patron and ally Peter Thiel. Trumps first national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, announced Harringtons arrival in early February as part of a talented group ready to bring fresh ideas to the table.