Rick Dearborn, who serves as White House deputy chief of staff, will resign in 2018.

Dearborn worked closely with chief of staff John Kelly, focusing on public outreach and legislative affairs.

The announcement of his departure is the latest in a long line of White House officials who have left the Trump administration less than a year into President Donald Trump's first term.



White House Deputy Chief of Staff Rick Dearborn is leaving the Trump administration in early 2018, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday night, citing White House officials.

Dearborn worked alongside chief of staff John Kelly with a focus on the White House's public outreach and legislative affairs. He previously served as one of President Donald Trump's top campaign aides. He will leave the White House in early 2018 to return to the private sector, the report said.

Kelly said in a statement cited by The Journal: “Rick loyally served the president for two and a half years and brought tremendous energy to the White House staff. He’s a super guy and it breaks my heart to see him leave, but I look forward to his continued personal friendship and support for the president’s agenda.”

Dearborn's pending departure will follow a long line of officials who have exited the Trump administration in the first 11 months of the president's first term. Just last week, former "Apprentice" star and Trump adviser Omarosa Manigault was ousted, and earlier this month, multiple news outlets reported that deputy national security adviser Dina Powell would also leave the White House.

The shakeups have occurred from within the highest ranks of the Trump administration, in what has been a tumultuous first year for Trump, under the spectre of a broadening federal investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, which US intelligence officials have said was carried out in order to help Trump win.

The departures are also a byproduct of a chaotic White House in which internal and external feuds and unrest have, at times, thrown the Trump administration off the rails.