Members resign from White House council on infrastructure security

Several members of yet another of President Trump’s advisory councils have decided to quit, the White House confirmed Tuesday.

A number of those sitting on the National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC), who were appointed under the previous administration, submitted their resignations on Monday evening, one day before the panel was scheduled to hold its quarterly business meeting.

The panel is tasked with advising the president and the Homeland Security Department on the security of critical U.S. infrastructure and information systems. The council, which was created by former President George W. Bush, can have up to 30 members, who are appointed by the president from the private sector, academia and state and local government.

{mosads}“We can confirm that a number of members of the NIAC who had been appointed under the previous administration have submitted their resignation,” a White House official said in a statement to The Hill.

“The NIAC met today as planned with the majority of its members, who remain committed to the important work of protecting our Nation’s critical infrastructure.”

The latest resignations come one week after Trump’s dissolution of two major business councils, whose members began to resign en masse over the president’s response to the deadly violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va.

Members of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities resigned en masse as well, citing Trump’s much-derided comments that “many sides” shared blame for the violence and that there were some “very fine people” marching with white supremacists.

The White House also decided last week to abandon plans to form a council of outside advisers on rebuilding the country’s infrastructure.