Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, President Trump's second national security advisor, will leave his post April 9th. Former United States ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton will replace him.
NYT:
General McMaster will retire from the military, the officials said. He has been discussing his departure with President Trump for several weeks, they said, but decided to speed up his departure, in part because questions about his status were casting a shadow over his conversations with foreign officials.
The officials also said that Mr. Trump wanted to fill out his national security team before his meeting with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un. He replaced Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson with the C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, last week.
The administration claims McMaster's resignation is "amicable and mutual."
They said it was not related to a leak on Tuesday of briefing materials for Mr. Trump’s phone call with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
In the materials, Mr. Trump was advised not to congratulate Mr. Putin on his re-election, which the president went ahead and did during the call.
McMaster and Trump did not get along and had differences in opinion over serious foreign policy issues.
Their tensions seeped into public view in February, when General McMaster said at a security conference in Munich that the evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was beyond dispute. The statement drew a swift rebuke from the president, who vented his anger on Twitter.
“General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia and Crooked H, the DNC and the Dems,” Mr. Trump wrote, using his campaign nickname for Hillary Clinton. “Remember the Dirty Dossier, Uranium, Speeches, Emails and the Podesta Company!”
McMaster's willingness to take a stronger stance on Russia than the president emerged again last Thursday during an impassioned speech at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. After McMaster's call for Russia to suffer serious political and economic consequences for its actions, CNN and The Washington Post both reported the president was ready for McMaster to go.
McMaster to Resign as National Security Adviser, and Will Be Replaced by John Bolton (NYT)