He released the letter after a face-to-face meeting with Trump in which the two men also aired their differences, a senior White House official said. “General Jim Mattis will be retiring, with distinction, at the end of February, after having served my Administration as Secretary of Defense for the past two years,” he said. One possible candidate to replace Mattis as defense chief could be Republican Senator Tom Cotton, long considered a front-runner to eventually take the role. Trump’s White House has had the highest turnover of senior-level staff of the past five presidents, according to the Brookings Institution think tank. Stephen Miller, a senior White House adviser, said Trump was entitled to a Pentagon chief with whom he could agree.

Source: Egypt Independent December 21, 2018 09:11 UTC