The “ success lists '' & amp; # 39; from 2017 show that the Trump team has long eyes on political opponents

The political conspiracy at the start of Trump's presidency sets the stage for a three-year effort by Trump and his loyalists to identify and expel alleged opponents of a "deep state" of the White House and, in some cases, to # 39; other parts of the government, a decision that has been kept at bay until recent weeks.

The existence of lists of "deep states" at the start of Trump's presidency has been widely discussed in the corridors of the National Security Council and the State Department, according to several former officials of the The White House, although several officials named on the list told CNN that they did not know that such a list really existed or that it was there. "Deep state" refers to a right wing belief that some members of the federal bureaucracy are actively undermining Trump's presidency.

One of the contributors to the list that was compiled and frequently updated in early 2017 was former NSC official and former Trump campaign assistant Rich Higgins. He told CNN in an exclusive interview recently that since the start of his term, he was convinced that the leaks of highly classified meeting minutes came from the Obama administration and he suspected widespread resistance to some administration efforts.

Higgins is not involved in the current listings and has no current connection to the White House. The White House did not respond to requests for comment for this story. Bannon and McMaster declined to comment on this story.

The "list of successes" team

Higgins, 45, a former Pentagon official who consulted for the Trump campaign in the 2016 election as a counterterrorism adviser, joined the NSC in February 2017 as director of strategic planning.

Higgins told CNN that he had arrived to find two NSC chief executives and colleagues named by Trump, Colonel Derek Harvey and Ezra Cohen-Watnick, meeting regularly over coffee or gathering in their offices and joined them on a mission to find alleged leaks and those perceived to be resistant to the policies of the Trump administration.

Two former senior White House officials told CNN they remembered seeing Harvey and Cohen-Watnick meeting Bannon frequently in Bannon's office and the duo let them know that they were collating lists of people they thought were disloyal. A former senior government official described the group as "the Hardy Boys".

Several senior administration officials told CNN that in early spring 2017, Bannon had given Trump a list of names of people believed to be on the run while McMaster was traveling.

McMaster realized that Bannon wanted them fired and, furious, called White House chief counsel Don McGahn that evening to complain and him ask if what they were doing was legal, two sources said. McGahn declined to comment on this story.

Higgins says that over the course of several months, the group worked on other similar lists that were circulating and created new versions that contained about four dozen people who they said were politically opposed to Trump, including people named by Obama, those detailed in the White House and "Never Trumpers." The list declined or increased over the following months based on normal staff turnover, said Higgins.

CNN obtained three of the lists that Higgins said the group had gathered and discussed. One is titled "Holdovers" and is dated July 2017. Another is titled "Personnel Policy Decisions", with a subtitle "Trump Administration NSC Appointments Not support Potus Vision and Expressed Intent". It has seven names, as well as their titles and a category called "Justification".

A third list, dated June 2017, contains 39 names, including the current adviser to Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders in the Middle East, Robert Malley, who left the administration when Trump took office, the former Islamic State Special Envoy Brett McGurk and the White House person believe to be the whistleblower in Ukraine. When asked why Malley was on the list, Higgins told CNN: "We left him by mistake."

Malley and McGurk declined to comment on this story. Mark Zaid, the whistleblower's lawyer, told CNN that he was unable to comment.

McMaster doesn't

Higgins said the group knew that McMaster wouldn't approve of what they were doing.

In mid-April, says Higgins, he was asked to forward the most recent list to Bannon. According to Higgins, Bannon told him that he had shown the list to Trump on April 17, 2017, and the president had asked McMaster to take action.

"The memo was my estimate of the situation, explanatory but not certain. I wanted to generate discussion and awareness around me," he told CNN.

The seven-page memo warned of threats from "globalist corporatists and bankers" and "Islamists", as well as from "the deep state". He said the "story" that "Russia had hacked the elections" was "illegitimate" and was a deliberate effort to destroy Trump's agenda.

"Recognizing in candidate Trump an existential threat to the Marxist cultural memes that dominate the dominant cultural narrative, those who benefit from it have recognized the threat it represents and see its destruction," it reads.

"I didn't write it myself," Higgins told CNN, adding that several people were then on the staff of the NSC. "And I didn't write it all at once. It was the product of hours of conversation."

Higgins says that on July 18, he was summoned to the office of the NSC's General Counsel and asked him if he had drafted the note. He said yes. "On July 21, McMaster MP Ricky Waddell told Higgins to resign, according to Higgins. Waddell did not respond to several requests for comment.

Harvey declined to comment on this story. A Cohen-Watnick spokesperson told CNN: "At no time was Ezra involved in the creation of a list of political enemies in the Trump NSC, nor" dismissed " from his post at the White House. "

On the latest lists drawn up by the president's allies and on Trump's vicious reaction to political enemies, Higgins told CNN: "This is a positive development for the administration. Any president, not just this one this deserves to have people who support him. from his general policy positions around him. "