Trump's elevation of Steve Bannon to the National Security Council was amplified by a cut-and-paste error

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon (R) and Senior Advisor Stephen Miller (L) take their seats prior to a news conference by U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, U.S., February 16, 2017.

President Donald Trump's decision to elevate Steve Bannon, the White House chief strategist, to a permanent position on the Principals Committee of the National Security Council was amplified by a cut-and-paste error, according to a report from The New York Times.

Trump's team did not specifically intend to elevate Steve Bannon, a political appointee, above the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the intelligence director when crafting the January 28 memo that laid out the organization of the NSC.

Trump's aides cut-and-pasted language from former President George W. Bush's organization chart, replacing the national intelligence director with the CIA director, not realizing that, under the Obama Administration, both positions were made full members of the NSC, Trump Administration officials told The New York Times' Peter Baker.

Bannon was placed on the Principals Committee - an interagency forum that deals with policy issues affecting national security, usually reserved for cabinet secretaries and top military and intelligence officials - through the January memo. The memo elevated Bannon to a permanent position on the committee, and removed the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint chiefs as regular attendees.

The move was widely criticized as injecting politics into national security matters.