WASHINGTON — In a Monday meeting with the Washington Post, GOP Presidential front-runner Donald Trump announced the members of his foreign policy team, which is being led by U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).
The five team members named Monday include Walid Phares Ph.D., Carter Page, Ph.D., George Papadopoulos, Joe Schmitz, and General Keith Kellogg.
Phares has an academic background, teaching at the National Defense University and Daniel Morgan Academy in Washington, and has advised members of Congress as well as appeared as a television analyst on terrorism and the Middle East.
Page, a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and now the managing partner of Global Energy Capital, is a longtime energy-industry executive who rose through the ranks at Merrill Lynch around the world before founding his current firm. He previously was a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations where he focused on the Caspian Sea region and the economic development in former Soviet states, according to his company biography and documents from his appearances at panels over the past decade.
Papadopoulos directs an international energy center at the London Centre of International Law Practice. He previously advised the presidential campaign of Ben Carson and worked as a research fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington.
Schmitz served as inspector general at the Department of Defense during the early years of George W. Bush’s administration and has worked for Blackwater Worldwide. Schmitz confirmed that he is working for the Trump campaign and said that he has been involved for the past month. He said he frequently confers with Sam Clovis, one of Trump’s top policy advisers, and that there has been a series of conference calls and briefings in recent weeks.
Kellogg, a former Army lieutenant general, is an executive vice president at Virginia-based CACI International, an intelligence and information technology consulting firm with clients around the world. He has experience in national defense and homeland security issues and worked as chief operating officer for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad following the invasion of Iraq.
The writers at the Washington Post stated that Trump outlined an “unabashedly non-interventionist approach to world affairs,” during the Monday sit-down. More details from the candidate’s conversation will be released by the paper this evening.
Monday’s announcements come in the wake of questions about who Trump consults with on foreign affairs.
“I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things,” Trump said on “Morning Joe.” “But I speak to a lot of people, but my primary consultant is myself, and I have a good instinct for this stuff.”
Trump went on the say that he “would consult with the best people,” which he began to list on Monday. He plans to share more names in the coming days.
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