A fluent Arabic speaker, Dina Powell played a large role in organizing Trump's first foreign trip to Saudi Arabia and Israel. | Andrew Harnik/AP Powell to leave White House in early 2018

Former Goldman Sachs partner Dina Powell, who joined Donald Trump’s administration last January as an adviser on women’s issues to Ivanka Trump and rose quickly to become deputy national security adviser with a heavy hand in Middle East issues, will be departing the administration early next year.

“Dina Powell has been a key, trusted advisor in this administration,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement Friday. “She has always planned to serve one year before returning home to New York, where she will continue to support the President’s agenda and work on Middle East policy. She will serve in the administration until early next year.”


A firm end date has not been decided on, a White House official said, but Powell is likely to leave in January or early February.

Dr. Nadia Schadlow, a deputy assistant to the president who works on the National Security Council, is seen as Powell's likely successor, the White House official said. Schadlow has been deeply involved with Trump's forthcoming national security strategy plan.

Powell, a former official in the administration of George W. Bush, relocated from New York City to Washington to join Trump’s team. She forged a quick and close relationship with the president's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner as well as with H.R. McMaster, who became national security adviser in February after the ouster of Michael Flynn.

Powell was also closely aligned with U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who earlier this year was seen as a potential replacement for Tillerson. Outside advisers to Trump involved in foreign affairs often discussed a potential game of musical chairs that would move Powell to the U.N. post, if Haley was appointed to head the State Department. But in recent weeks, CIA Director Mike Pompeo has come to be seen as the likely replacement for Tillerson, leaving no potential opening for Powell at the U.N.

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The announcement of her exit marks the first confirmed departure of what many people close to the administration expect to be a mass exodus in the early part of next year.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is widely expected to depart in February, although his spokesman has denied any plans to move on from Foggy Bottom. Trump’s top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, has also long been rumored as a potential departure after passing tax reform. The future of Kushner and Ivanka Trump as government officials working in the West Wing has also come under scrutiny, even by the president himself.

Powell has long expressed a desire to eventually return to New York. She made her plans formal this week after completing Trump’s national security strategy document, a top priority for her, according to the White House official.

A fluent Arab speaker, Powell played a large role in organizing Trump’s first foreign trip to Saudi Arabia and Israel, and worked closely with Kushner’s team on his Middle East peace initiative. On Sunday, in his first public remarks about the Middle East peace process, Kushner highlighted Powell’s role multiple times — as a key Egyptian-born official on a team made up primarily of Orthodox Jews.

In the early days of the administration, she was seen as an ally of the “globalist” contingent of the West Wing, aligned with Cohn and the president’s children, and in opposition to the “nationalist” force represented by former chief strategist Steve Bannon. Powell also helped Ivanka Trump hire her chief of staff, Julie Radford, and build out her portfolio.

As the former president of the Goldman Sachs Foundation, Powell was a critical crutch to Ivanka Trump in the early days of the administration, opening up her rolodex to introduce her to CEOs and Washington power players at dinner parties and breakfasts at the Four Seasons. But she quickly moved on to focus almost exclusively on foreign policy issues.

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Kushner and Ivanka Trump also pushed for Powell to replace Reince Priebus as chief of staff last summer. The job that ultimately went to retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, then secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

Trump, a White House official said, did not want Powell to leave and asked her to stay on the team. It is not clear what role she will continue to play from the outside.

“Dina has been an invaluable member of President Trump’s team,” McMaster said in a statement. “Her sage advice helped provide options to the president and her strong relationships across the U.S. government and internationally helped drive execution of the president’s decisions. She is one of the most talented and effective leaders with whom I have ever served.”

Daniel Lippman contributed to this story.