Questions multiply over Steve Bannon’s role in Trump administration

The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy President Trump’s elevation of his chief political strategist to a major role in national security policy, and a White House order banning refugees from certain Muslim-majority countries from US entry, appeared to come together as cause and effect over the weekend. Former Obama defence secretary and CIA director Robert M Gates, who said he was unconcerned about Bannon’s role, told ABC’s This Week that “pushing out of the National Security Council meetings, except when their specific issues are at stake, is a big mistake.” Every president finds their judgement useful, “whether they like it or not,” Gates added. Outside the White House, reaction to the new NSC organisational directive was less positive, with some saying that the immigration directive suffered from jumping ahead of the normal policy process, allowing it and other orders to be composed by political operatives such as Bannon and Stephen Miller, the White House senior adviser for policy, who is a Bannon ally and a former aide to Senator Jeff Sessions, Trump’s populist and conservative nominee for attorney general. “The President told Karl Rove, ‘You may never come to a National Security Council meeting,’” Bolten said at a conference on the NSC and politics last fall.