One of the central criticisms of McMaster is that his coup is purging Trump allies while keeping Obama holdovers. The man at the center of the holdover controversy is Ben Rhodes.
Rhodes has been compared to Obama's Goebbels. A malicious smear artist with a talent for gaming the media. And backing Iran's genocidal push for nuclear capabilities.
There have been multiple accusations made that under McMaster, Ben Rhodes has NSC access, and that those holdovers who report to him, have been protected by McMaster.
From Caroline Glick
He allows anti-Israel, pro-Muslim Brotherhood, pro-Iran Obama people like Robert Malley to walk around the NSC and tell people what to do and think. He has left Ben (reporters know nothing about foreign policy and I lied to sell them the Iran deal) Rhodes' and Valerie Jarrett's people in place.
From Babbin at the Spectator...
There are four people in positions of responsibility in the NSC who have been identified by a source as people who had been “direct reports” to Rhodes — i.e., who worked under his direct supervision — who McMaster has protected and retained. They are: Abigail Grace (Special Assistant), Fernando Cutz (NSC Director for South America), Andrea Hall (NSC Senior Director for WMD, Terrorism & Threat Reduction), and Merry Lin (Director for Global and Asia Economics).
Ben Rhodes has claimed that the attacks on McMaster are Russian propaganda. But the truly furious effort has come from one of his former allies, Michael McFaul.
McFaul worked with Rhodes at the NSC. He was the author of Advancing Democracy Abroad, a book which, among other things, proposed the inclusion of the Muslim Brotherhood in "democracy" and argued that their organizations were quite different than Islamic terrorist groups. This was one of the great obsessions of Obama Inc. And PSD-11, the Obama directive which remains secret and whose investigation was supposedly one of the factors that led to the purge of Higgins at the NSC, is closely linked to it.
According to Michael McFaul, who worked with Rhodes in the National Security Council and was later named the American ambassador to Russia, Rhodes “became, first in the speechwriting process, and later, in the heat of the Arab Spring, a central figure” in the Obama administration. “Because of his close personal relationship with the president,” added McFaul, “Ben can always make policy through the speeches and statements made by President Obama.”
He was also involved in planning out the post-Gaddafi Libya after Obama's illegal invasion in support of Islamist terrorists. A plot that led directly to the Benghazi massacre.
Here was the scene after Egypt fell.
But Rhodes’ camp carried the day. Obama told Mubarak he had to go, and on February 11 the Egyptian stepped down. Afterward, a group of White House aides—including Rhodes and Denis McDonough, then deputy national security adviser and now Obama’s chief of staff—gathered for an impromptu party in the office of Michael McFaul, Obama’s top Russia aide. They celebrated the historic moment with beer and vodka. “It was a euphoric night for us, no doubt,” says McFaul. But his academic background in democracy issues gave him an understanding of the many ways things might go wrong. Amid the celebration, he recalls, “I was nervous as hell.”
Now here's McFaul furiously defending McMaster on Twitter. Because of his background, McFaul had been enlisted to push the Obama coup's Russia conspiracy meme.
Read this tweet from Ben Rhodes, who only just a few weeks ago was reading the most highly classified intel in the USG on this subject. https://t.co/6UzsfdMKQA
— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) February 14, 2017
And then the McMaster stuff began popping up.
Check out Trump's National Security Advisor on Russia. Коллеги listen closely. There is no "deep state". HR is the president's NSA. https://t.co/kj02W0kzQN
— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) August 7, 2017
When I hear "nationalists" are out to get 3-star general, scholar & warrior HR McMaster, I wonder what is their definition of nationalism?
— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) August 7, 2017
How is is accurately describing Putin and his ways, as HR McMaster did this weekend, not "nationalistic" or a word I prefer, "patriotic"? https://t.co/tATIvxzI8t
— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) August 7, 2017
Strong @Morning_Joe segment this morning with @McFaul on Russia & North Korea https://t.co/vG9ykcOKFA
— Jesse Rodriguez (@JesseRodriguez) August 7, 2017
And a huge mistake for our national security. Time for the campaign against HR McMaster to end. https://t.co/NKG4TLqxSQ
— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) August 7, 2017
Russia continues to meddle in our domestic politics. https://t.co/xWzcgdk8Pl
— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) August 7, 2017
It certainly is interesting that a Ben Rhodes ally would invest this much effort in protecting the man who is protecting Ben Rhodes' allies at the NSC. While purging anyone who would threaten them.