President Trump’s Most High-Profile Sackings So Far

Matt Snape

John Bolton, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, is the 45th person to be sacked from the President’s administration, which is renowned for its high turnover of staff. The two disagreed on how to tackle Iran and North Korea, with Bolton becoming famous for developing a more neoconservative approach to foreign policy than his boss. The sheer scale of high-level departures has become noticeable. Here are some of the most recognisable sackings that have occurred whilst Trump has served as US President:

Michael Flynn spent less than a month in the Trump White House as the President’s national security adviser. He started on 20th January, 2017, and then resigned on 13th February, 2017. His resignation was triggered by information surfacing that he misled the FBI and Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of his communications with the Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Flynn’s tenure was the shortest in the history of the Trump administration so far.

Since being fired by the President, Anthony Scaramucci has become an outspoken Trump critic recently. But days after beginning work as the White House Communications Director on July 25th, 2017, he was fired by Trump for his expletive-laden interview with The New Yorker‘s Ryan Lizza, in which he made derogatory statements about several members of the President’s administration.

Reince Preibus served under President Trump for six months from 20th January, 2017 to 23rd July, 2017. He was an outspoken critic of Trump during the early days of the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, but later called for party unity once the businessman was made the official 2016 GOP candidate. The President then appointed him as Chief of Staff. Once Preibus submitted his resignation, he was replaced by John Kelly.

Steve Bannon is one of the most notable appointments Trump has made since becoming President. He is a former investment banker and rejoined Breitbart News where he once worked as an executive chairman after leaving the White House on August 18th, 2017. After the President’s inauguration, Bannon served as his Chief Strategist. Following the violence at the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally, the New York Times reported Trump’s comment to spread blame for the incident on ‘many sides’ came from his former Chief Strategist.

James Comey enjoyed a four-year career as FBI Director from September 2013 to May 2017. Trump fired him to ‘ease the pressure’ off his administration that was caused by the Russia investigation. Comey then arranged for a friend to leak to the press a memo he had written after a private meeting he had with the President on February 14th, 2017. It said the President asked the FBI Director to end his investigation into Flynn. Inspector General Horowitz found that Comey violated FBI policy regarding the memos, but the Department of Justice declined to prosecute him.

Trump’s former Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, served the President from February 1st, 2017 to March 31st, 2018. Tillerson presided over a 50 per cent drop in new applications to work for the Foreign Office, and 60 per cent of high-ranking career diplomats in the State Department resigned. Trump dismissed him in March 2018 as their relationship deteriorated. Tillerson’s tenure was one of the shortest in recent history.

Nikki Haley served as the US ambassador to the UN from January 2017 to December 2018. She was renowned for reiterating the US’s willingness to use force against North Korea if absolutely necessary. She announced her resignation in October 2018.

As Trump’s Attorney General, Jeff Sessions was famous for criticising sanctuary cities and told reporters that cities which fail to comply with federal immigration policy would lose federal funding. He resigned the day after the November 2018 mid-term elections for his public and private disagreements with the President.

Trump’s renowned Press Secretary Sarah Sanders left her role on June 2019. The Mueller Report claimed that she admitted to investigators she made false statements to the public in her role.