Ezra Cohen-Watnick, National Security Council , Trump Admin Appointee, Trump Admin Acting Official, Project 2025 Author / Contributor, Project 2025

Ezra Cohen-Watnick

Risk: Military Escalation, Politicized IntelligenceBranch: ExecutiveLikely Agency or Office: National Security Council Characteristic: Trump Admin Appointee, Trump Admin Acting Official, Project 2025 Author / Contributor
The Jew haters at the NY Times are at it again. Here they cover up terrorist acts in front of the WH, including taking the ‘protestors’ word that the slogans used at the gathering are not a call to violence… I don’t recall the NYT giving credence to the Jan 6 rioters about why their behavior was acceptable. Ezra Cohen-Watnick on X, June 9, 2024

During the Trump administration, Ezra Cohen-Watnick held several high-level positions, including Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security. He was brought into the administration by then-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, as the Senior Director for Intelligence Programs at the National Security Council. Cohen-Watnick was a source for Rep. Devin Nunes’ claims that the Obama administration was inappropriately wiretapping Donald Trump, claims that have been repudiated as any such surveillance was incidental to the long-standing and legitimate practice of intelligence surveillance of agents of foreign powers.

After Flynn’s resignation, Cohen-Watnick was met with resistance by Flynn’s successor, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, and career intelligence officials, who wanted him moved to a different position. At the urging of Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner, Trump overruled McMaster when he tried to replace Cohen-Watnick with a career CIA expert.

Cohen-Watnick was eventually ousted from the NSC, but he rejoined the administration in April 2018 as an advisor to Attorney General Jeff Sessions on counterterrorism. Cohen-Watnick was later appointed Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict before serving as the Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence from November 10, 2020 until the end of the Trump administration on January 20, 2021. Cohen-Watnick and his close ally, Kash Patel, were referred to in some corners of the Pentagon as “zampolit”, a Soviet term for political enforcers embedded in certain positions to ensure loyalty to the Kremlin.

Cohen-Watnick has expressed doubt over our election process, including a tweet about the lack of voter ID. He has also defended Trump in his indictments, claiming: “They are desperate. Their attempts to throw Trump in jail have all but stalled. The mania will only increase until the moment he is defeated, and thus there is no end in sight.”

At the end of the Trump Administration, Cohen-Watnick was named to the Public Interest Declassification Board, which helps declassify intelligence information, as part of Trump’s “quiet push to salt federal agencies with Trump loyalists.”

Cohen-Watnick is known for holding strong anti-China and anti-Iran views, and he called for the use of U.S. spies to overthrow the Iranian government while with the NSC. He has also criticized news outlets like the Reuters, Axios, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times, calling them “Jew haters” who are purportedly “cover[ing] up terrorist acts in front of the White House.” Cohen-Watnick is listed as a contributor in the Project 2025 “Mandate for Leadership” document.