Meanwhile

The acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center was removed Wednesday in what insiders fear is a purge by the Trump administration of career professionals at an organization set up after 9/11 to protect the nation from further attacks, according to two former U.S. officials.

Russell E. Travers, a highly regarded intelligence professional with more than 40 years of government service, told colleagues he was fired by acting director of national intelligence Richard Grenell.

[...]

The surprise move came hours after President Trump announced his intent to nominate Pentagon Special Operations and counterterrorism official Christopher Miller to head the center. A deputy director will be named to serve as acting director pending Miller’s confirmation, said a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

A spokeswoman for Grenell disputed that Travers was fired.

Travers “was offered the opportunity to move to a new role and chose to retire,” Assistant Director of National Intelligence for Strategic Communications Amanda Schoch said in a statement to The Washington Post.

  WaPo

What was the new role? Janitor?

One of the former officials said that Travers walked into a meeting on Wednesday expecting to brief Grenell on the center when he was told that he was out. He had no intention or desire to retire, they said.

In the meeting, Grenell told Travers he would like to know “how long it would take you to leave,” according to one of the former officials, who was briefed on the meeting. Travers replied that he would need “a few weeks” to complete the administrative work, the official recounted.

“They said, ‘Great, we’ll afford you the opportunity to retire,’ ” the former official said.

[...]

Travers, who began his career as a U.S. Army intelligence officer in 1978, took up the acting position last August when the center’s then-director, Joseph Maguire, was tapped to become the acting DNI. Maguire was fired by Trump last month amid a controversy over a briefing given to lawmakers by a subordinate on Russian threats to the 2020 election.

The president then named Grenell, a staunch loyalist, to serve as the acting DNI until a permanent director has been confirmed.

[...]

Grenell and senior adviser Kashyap Patel, also installed last month, are seeking ways to reduce the overall size of the ODNI, according to one former intelligence official. The NCTC is seen as a rich target, and the career officials who have pressed for cuts in the past see an opening, said the former official.

“They see an opportunity now to give the politicals the scalps they want while achieving changes they’ve long sought at the same time,” the former official said.

[...]

In a farewell note to the workforce Wednesday, Travers noted Trump’s plan to bring on Miller, lauded Miller’s experience and said the acting DNI wanted to “assemble a new team.” He sought to boost morale, noting the center’s accomplishments. “We have recently been the subject of an external evaluation by a group of national security luminaries that strongly validated the need for the center,” he wrote. “And most importantly, we have you — the finest workforce with whom I have ever been associated. I have no doubt that the center is postured for success going forward.”

If only we could all share his optimism.

“There’s not a lot of love for NCTC at the CIA, given the professionals in CIA’s own counterterrorism mission center have the operational and analytic expertise in this area,” said Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA counterterrorism official, who said he does not see the NCTC shake-up as an attack on the intelligence community, but rather a natural downsizing that was long overdue.

Yet one of the center’s strengths, officials say, is its ability to integrate information from domestic and foreign intelligence sources without running afoul of privacy laws.

But who cares about that these days?

Sending CIA and other analysts back to their home agencies may reduce the center’s numbers, but “you can’t take all those NCTC authorities and put them back at the CIA,” said one of the former officials. “We don’t send domestic information to a foreign intelligence agency. That’s the system we have to protect against abuse of surveillance authorities.”

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.