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WASHINGTON – She insulted the Secretary of Defense. She was the ax woman of John Bolton, the famous national security adviser, and was hunting National Security Council personnel who were deemed insufficiently conservative or loyal.
But by denigrating two Melania Trump staff members who were traveling to Africa with the first lady last month, Mira Ricardel, deputy national security advisor, apparently went too far.
In a White House where the drama was constant, but almost always behind the scenes, an email from Stephanie Grisham, spokeswoman for the First Lady of the First Lady, was unusually direct: "It's the position of the Prime Minister's office that she no longer deserves the honor of serving in this White House. "
The e-mail was sent less than an hour after Ricardel's appearance at an official event at the White House with President Donald Trump.
At the end of the afternoon, contradictory information was circulating as to whether Ricardel had actually been dismissed. The Wall Street Journal reported that she had been escorted abruptly out of the White House, but that two White House aides corrected her an hour later, claiming that Ricardel, who could not be reached for comment, was still employed.
For weeks, Melania Trump had warned her husband's advisers that Ricardel, who is much distrusted by West Wing staff, was spreading negative stories, especially about the first lady.
But the fact that Ricardel is in limbo on Tuesday bears witness to an unusual amount of muscular flexion on the part of the first lady – who normally avoids inner palace intrigue – as well as limits on her influence. It also showed the stubbornness of Bolton, the boss of Ricardel, who has the reputation of being a shrewd player in a chaotic white house and not being intimidated, even by the president's wife.
Melania Trump's problems with Ricardel seem to go back to the first lady's trip to Africa in October, according to people with first-hand knowledge of the situation.
Ricardel had announced the trip before her full planning, according to one of the people, before threatening to obtain resources after learning that she did not have a seat aboard Melania Trump's plane. Once the trip was over, Ricardel accused Melanie Trump's most trusted staff members of inappropriate behavior, including Lindsay Reynolds, the first lady's chief of staff, claiming that a person close to the first lady had said to be false.
Melania Trump is then Ricardel's complaint to John Kelly, White House chief of staff, and Kelly has raised the problem with Bolton, said two White House officials. Kelly is theoretically the head of Bolton, but the national security adviser has so far refused to return Ricardel, who was spotted in his office Tuesday afternoon.
As a rule in Republican foreign policy circles, Ricardel has carved out a reputation as a political hawk and inflexible bureaucratic fighter. In the early 1990s, she advised Senator Bob Dole on the Balkans, drawing on her own Croatian origins, and then worked for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the administration of President George W. Bush.
After supporting Donald Trump as President, she was appointed to head her Pentagon transition team. In this capacity, she opposed Jim Mattis, the choice of Trump's Secretary of Defense, preventing her from hiring Anne Patterson as Assistant Secretary of Defense, and rejecting more than a dozen of the others. candidates proposed by Mattis to this position.
Mattis, in turn, later tried to block Ricardel when she ran for positions in the Trump administration, although she eventually held the position of Under Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration. before Bolton takes him to the National Security Council.
Ricardel, officials said, suspected Mattis of trying to charge the Pentagon with Democrats and supporters of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2016. Shortly after Ricardel's arrival at the National Security Council Donald Trump commented on CBS's "60 minutes" and said he thought Mattis was a democrat.
The drama surrounding Ricardel was the culmination of a day of widespread speculation about staff movements that the president might consider.
Three people said Trump would be almost certain to dismiss Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary of Homeland Security, who has long been the target of the President's dissatisfaction. And we think that Kelly's fate is tied to what happens to Nielsen.
Inside the White House, the withdrawal of Nielsen – who was Kelly's senior assistant when he was Homeland Security Secretary – was seen as a way for Trump to hunt Kelly without firing him. Nick Ayers, the chief of staff of Vice President Mike Pence, is seen as a replacement for Kelly, where he leaves. The Washington Post first reported that Nielsen could soon leave.
Ayers is favored by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and his daughter Ivanka Trump, both serving as West Wing advisers. Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., also told his friends that he considered Ayers as "competent", a stamp that the Trump family has not always affixed on people working for their father .
Ayers did not travel as originally planned with Pence during his official trip to Asia this week, two White House officials announced. And another future chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, who already runs two agencies and who was seen as campaigning for the position of chief of staff, told his aides that he was no longer interested.
Several people at the White House told the president of his concern that Ayers would play this role and warned that some staff members could leave their posts because of this.
Trump hates interpersonal confrontation, and he often lets assistants that he does not like to stay in office for long uncomfortable periods, which means that any change could be in a few weeks, or even to do something about Ricardel, warned the relatives of the president. Trump, however, has become increasingly suspicious that Kelly and his close associates disclose stories.
But Nielsen has been the target of the president's anger for many months, mainly because of his government's zero tolerance immigration policy and its belief that it was not putting it into practice effectively. Trump turned his back on his service in the Bush administration and questioned his loyalty. He also made sure that she is the face of the extremely controversial policy on border separation involving the removal of children from their parents.
Kelly defended Nielsen from the president and tried to shield her from criticism from other cabinet members, although some of Trump's allies believe her views and her treatment of him are unfair.
Nielsen had trouble explaining to the White House the complexity of border security. A department official said Nielsen had even rejected many measures suggested by immigration extremists, even though she had continued her efforts to limit immigration by using other controversial policies. The most recent effort is a proposal that would deny asylum to anyone illegally arrived in the country.
Employees believe that Nielsen's fate has been sealed with the publication of the agency's border surveillance data over the last two months, which showed that even though the total number of people apprehended at the border remains low, the number of families traveling to the United States has grown.
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