Washington DC - President Donald Trump's administration recently put more than 100 officials at the National Security Council (NSC) on administrative leave as part of efforts to restructure the agency.

According to CNN, NSC Chief of Staff Brian McCormack sent an email out on Friday with the subject line "Your return to home agency," which informed dismissed employees that they had "30 minutes to clean out their desks."

Staffers who were not in the office that day were told they could "email an address and arrange a time to retrieve their stuff later and turn in devices."

The NSC is typically seen as a key group that coordinates with the president on his foreign policy agenda.

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The dismissals come as Trump and his interim national security advisor, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have been orchestrating a massive overhaul of the agency.

In a statement to Axios, a White House official assisting in the overhaul described the NSC as "the ultimate Deep State" that the administration is working on "gutting."

But critics have argued the moves are an effort to fill the government with Trump loyalists that will allow the president to do as he pleases with no pushback.

Former National Security Advisor Phil Gordon said in an X post that the dismissals will bring "less expertise, coordination, and vigilance" and more "chaotic foreign policy," describing it as "a plan to implement whims/desires from the top."