National Security Spokesman Becomes Latest Trump White House Figure to Abandon Ship

Sunday, we learned that a position as writer and lecturer at something called “The Kirby Center,” an outpost of something called “Hillsdale College,” was too great a temptation for Donald Trump’s national security council spokesman. Michael Anton, who made it his job to stump for the America First ideology, vague and ridiculous as it was, has said his goodbyes to the White House:

National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton said Sunday that he plans to leave the White House — a move that will leave President Donald Trump without one of the earliest and sharpest defenders of his “America First” foreign policy.

Though Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, brought Anton into the administration, he spent the majority of his tenure serving as spokesman for Flynn’s replacement, H.R. McMaster.

In the Politico story, Anton says he will be “forever grateful” to Trump, but doesn’t give any other reason for leaving. It’s likely, though, that McMaster’s departure on Friday, and the arrival of his ghoulish warmongering replacement John Bolton, spurred the move. For what it’s worth, Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump has “nothing but good things to say” about Anton, so maybe this truly was his move, and not something forced from above.

Prior to working in the White House, Anton wrote an anonymous and widely circulated post for the Claremont Institute calling the 2016 race “The Flight 93 Election.” In it, he chastised traditional conservative media for not rallying to Trump’s side, and said the choice for Republicans would be a test of political virtue. Knowing how susceptible Trump is to flattery, it’s likely that this didn’t hurt Anton’s chances of working within the administration.