What would you say if Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence on the National Security Council, who discovered the Obama-era unmasking of the names of Donald Trump associates whose communications were perhaps illegally intercepted and leaked by the Obama intelligence apparatus, was fired, and that Susan Rice, the person at the heart of the Benghazi cover-up and the unmasking and leaking of the unmasked names, was granted a renewal of her Top Secret security clearance?

If you said that could never happen in a Donald Trump administration you’d be wrong, because H.R. McMaster, President Trump’s National Security Advisor just did it.

And what would you say if the same person who fired Ezra Cohen-Watnick also fired other Trump loyalists with stellar records, such as Col. Derek Harvey, the NSC’s Middle East director and Rich Higgins (an early Trump supporter and advisor) who was in the NSC’s strategic-planning office?

If you said that could never happen in a Donald Trump administration you’d be wrong about that too, because H.R. McMaster, President Trump’s National Security Advisor just did it.

And what would you say if the same person who fired all of these brilliant national security staffers and who also granted disgraced Obama National Security Susan Rice a renewal of her Top Secret security clearance also stated that “Susan Rice did nothing wrong,” even though her actions are the subject of a congressional inquiry and call for a Special Counsel?

If you said that could never happen in a Donald Trump administration you’d be wrong about that too, because H.R. McMaster, President Trump’s National Security Advisor just did it.

And what would you say if a National Security Advisor was told to stop the illegal press leaks from his staff and he did nothing, allowing the leaks to proceed at an unprecedented rate?

If you said that could never happen in a Donald Trump administration you’d be wrong about that too, because under H.R. McMaster, President Trump’s National Security Advisor, that’s what’s been happening.

And what would you say if a National Security Council staffer was directed to compile a list of Obama holdovers and took that list directly to the president, who requested that his National Security Advisor follow through with the recommendations, and National Security Advisor outright refused.

If you said that could never happen in a Donald Trump administration you’d be wrong about that too, because H.R. McMaster, President Trump’s National Security Advisor, did exactly that.

And what would you say if, after the American electorate rejected the failed policies of Obama and his erstwhile successor Hillary Clinton top Obama officials continue to come and go in and out of the White House compound as they please. And that one prominent official, Robert Malley (Obama’s “ISIS czar"), has continued to brief National Security Council staff, who have continued to advise the President to certify Iran is complying with Obama’s nuclear weapons deal in the face of overwhelming evidence that it is not?*

If you said that could never happen in a Donald Trump administration you’d be wrong about that too, because under H.R. McMaster, President Trump’s National Security Advisor, that’s what’s been happening.

And what would you say if the same disgraced Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice, who was at the center of the Benghazi cover-up and the unmasking and leaking scandal, advised President Trump’s National Security Advisor to get rid of all of the Trump loyalists on his staff?

If you said that could never happen in a Donald Trump administration you’d be wrong about that too, because H.R. McMaster, President Trump’s National Security Advisor, did exactly that.

Why would President Trump want to keep Obama policy staff on at the White House where they could leak and undermine his goals?

The answer is of course he wouldn’t, but President Trump’s goals are not the goals and policies of the establishment intelligence and military Deep State to whom H.R. McMaster owes his military career and loyalty.

Their goal is to maintain the Obama and Bush fiction that the war Islam has declared on the West is merely a regional war that can be won by the kinetic approach that has failed for the past sixteen years and that defeating Islamism and jihad have nothing to do with winning this war abroad and at home.

If there was ever proof that the Deep State exists and protects its own it is the record and actions of H.R. McMaster, President Trump’s ill-conceived National Security Advisor.

In our view, the goal of McMaster’s purges is isolate President Trump and place “his people” on the NSC staff, thus returning the NSC and the intelligence community to the Obama model where, as Mike Flynn put it, reporting on the terrorism threat that came up the intelligence community's chain of command was very different from what was being presented at the top levels of government.

McMaster’s power play to isolate the President is a clear and present danger to the success of President Trump’s administration and to the fulfillment of his campaign promises. It is past time for McMaster to be fired.

George Rasley is editor of Richard Viguerie's ConservativeHQ.com. A veteran of over 300 political campaigns, he served on the staff of Vice President Dan Quayle, as Director of Policy and Communication for Congressman Adam Putnam (FL-12) then Vice Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, and as spokesman for Rep. Mac Thornberry now-Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

*Hat tip to Conservative Review’s Jordan Schachtel for this item.