Page:CTRL0000034610 - Deposition of Keith Kellogg, Jr., (Dec. 14, 2021).pdf/15

15 During that time in the White House, all of those days that you just mentioned, you had a role in national security issues, correct?

Every day. I was involved in every national security decision and discussion through the 4 years.

And the reason, just to fully explain this, under the national security policy that the Trump administration put out, I was required to sit on every National Security Council meeting. So I sat through all of the meetings and the discussions that we had there.

So by law, as the executive secretary of the National Security Council, that was a specified position. And then when I became the National Security Advisor to the Vice President, he -- the President said to me that, "You will do exactly what you did for Pence and stay with me," because they kept me as an Assistant to the President.

The reason why that's important, previously the National Security Advisor to the Vice President was not an Assistant to the President. He dropped the position to Deputy Assistant to the President. But the President was very clear when I was selected that day, he said, "I want you to stay, maintain your position as an AP, so I would have the ability to call on you at any time."

Okay. And when you say "selected that day," that was in April of 2018 when the --

Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, I wrote it down. It was April 28th.

2018?

Yeah. It was April 2018.

Okay. So you were fulfilling the role of both National Security Advisor to the Vice President and you kept the role as Assistant to the President?

Yes. So he could -- he did that so he could pull on me. In this White House, in the Trump White House, the Assistant to the Presidents all had what we called