Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

1. White House Office · Minor

Vet NSC staff and the National Security Adviser for security experience

Not started

38 1. White House Office

“The NSC staff, and particularly the National Security Adviser, should be vetted for foreign and security policy experience and insight.”

What has happened

  1. Not started

    Moved the other way. The Quote asks that NSC staff and the National Security Adviser be vetted for foreign and security policy experience; the administration's one dated action on vetting at the Executive Office of the President is the January 2025 memorandum directing the White House Counsel to grant EOP personnel interim Top Secret/SCI clearances immediately, for up to six months, so that people hired before their clearances were processed could start work. That reduces pre-appointment scrutiny rather than adding it. Nothing establishes a screen for foreign or security policy experience: NSC policy staff do not appear in the White House Office personnel report, and the report's only relevant entry is the National Security Advisor himself, Marco A. Rubio, carried at $0.00 because he is paid as Secretary of State. Whether particular appointees hold the experience the Quote wants is a judgment about individuals and not one this site makes.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

Researched 2026-08-27, with Chapter 1’s other White House asks.

  • The National Security Adviser named in the 2025 and 2026 personnel reports is Marco A. Rubio, at $0.00 per annum because he is paid as Secretary of State. NSC policy staff are not carried in the White House Office report at all, so the report cannot speak to their vetting.
  • The one dated instrument that bears on vetting runs the other way. The Memorandum of 2025-01-20 “To Resolve the Backlog of Security Clearances for Executive Office of the President Personnel” (read on govinfo.gov) directs the White House Counsel to hand the White House Security Office a list of personnel “hereby immediately granted interim Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) security clearances”, with access to facilities and technology, before the ordinary process concludes.
  • Whether a given person has “foreign and security policy experience and insight” is a judgment about individuals, which this site does not make.
Action
appoint
Object
National Security Council staff and National Security Adviser
ID
27