Big changes are expected at the White House in 2018.

Shuffling the top hierarchy of the White House staff, Johnny DeStefano, a senior administration official, will be assuming greater responsibilities beginning in 2018, per an Axios report.

DeStefano, who already enjoys great influence in the Trump administration, will be overseeing the White House’s political operation — an important endeavor as the 2018 midterms elections quickly approach.

According to sources with direct knowledge of the changes, DeStano will be taking on the job responsibilities of deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn, who is expected to leave the White House at some point next year.

Another item up for revision is the Trump administration’s political operation, currently headed by Bill Stepien.

Stepien, a seasoned political operative who served as an aide to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, is widely judged by his White House colleagues not to be performing at a satisfactory level.

Regarded as a quiet man who holds little influence with Republicans on Capitol Hill, Stepien was viewed as a major factor for several GOP fumbles this year, such as failed health care reform in Congress and the handling of Roy Moore’s Senate candidacy in Alabama.

A tense meeting regarding the White House’s political operation resulted in former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski berating Stepien for lackluster results.

“Nobody knows what the f— he’s done or is doing to advance the president’s agenda politically,” a senior administration figure, who wished to remain anonymous, said. “There’s no follow through on initiatives.”

DeStefano, on the other hand, is regarded as a skillful political operative, having worked as a senior adviser to former Speaker of the House John Boehner and assisted the Republican National Committee in amassing a 2016 voter file and political database.

The White House will utilize the well-connected DeStefano to keep relationships with Republicans around the United States.

The rising operative is expected to leading the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, where he will maintain the White House’s relationships with Republican leaders across the country, such as governors, state legislators, mayors and tribal leaders.

DeStefano will also begin leading the Office of Public Liaison, the Trump administration’s outreach to interest groups, and is set to keep his current role overseeing personnel appointments across the White House.

A lot of responsibility for one individual, but not surprising for a White House that has seen many turnovers in its first year. Officials hope to steady the ship by placing the right people in pivotal leadership positions.

In fact, staff turnover in the Trump White House has been unprecedented in the modern era.

The current administration’s 34 percent first-year turnover rate is double that of former President Reagan’s 17 percent in 1981 —the closest rate comparable in the past four decades, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Twenty-one of the 61 senior officials tracked by the Brookings Institution has either resigned, been reassigned or outright fired.

Notable departures include national security adviser Michael Flynn, senior adviser Steve Bannon, chief of staff Reince Priebus and White House press secretary Sean Spicer.

Perhaps the most famous staffer was White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci — who lasted just one week on the job. Administration members still refer to that time period as “Scaramucci week.” (For more from the author of “Report: Big Changes Coming to Trump White House in 2018” please click HERE)

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By Andrew Kaczynski, Chris Massie and Nathan McDermott. A White House senior adviser at the Department of Homeland Security previously promoted conspiracy theories about former President Barack Obama’s birthplace, lamented the “Zimbabwe-fication of America,” and mocked the LGBT community.

Frank Wuco has served as the White House adviser to DHS since January and now leads a team tasked with helping to enforce President Donald Trump’s executive orders, including the administration’s travel ban.

Before that, he hosted a conservative talk radio show in Florida for several years and appeared as a guest on other talk radio shows. CNN’s KFile reviewed more than 40 hours of audio of Wuco’s show and his other appearances.

Wuco, a retired naval intelligence officer, has previously come under media scrutiny for his hardline views on Islam. Wuco has said that violent extremism is in line with the teachings of mainstream Islam and has dressed up as a jihadist character named Fuad Wasul in videos to teach others about the dangers of Islam. (Read more from “CNN Complains Senior White House DHS Adviser Is a Birther, LGBT Critic, and Hardline Anti-Islamist'” HERE)

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Agency Defends DHS Adviser Wuco

By Josh Delk. Frank Wuco, who hosted a conservative radio program before joining the White House in January, floated the conspiracy that Obama was not eligible to be president because he was not a natural born U.S. citizen and claimed that Obama knew “nothing about the black American experience.”

“Mr. Wuco works every day to keep the American people safe by helping to implement the President’s security-focused agenda, including raising the global bar for vetting and screening of potential terrorists. Years-old comments cherry picked from thousands of hours on the air have no bearing on his ability to perform his job for the American people,” then acting DHS press secretary Tyler Houlton told CNN.

Wuco once hosted a guest in 2011 who wrote a book forwarding the case why Obama was ineligible to be president, and called the president’s birth certificate “questionable” after it was released to the public.

“This person, not only does he, with the exception of the color of his skin, not only does he sort of lay a very false claim on his identification with the black American experience, he has no idea what it is. But people don’t care,” Wuco once quoted a friend as saying on his show. Read more from Agency Defends DHS Adviser HERE)

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White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Tuesday disputed reports by Bloomberg and Reuters citing an anonymous source saying special counsel Robert Mueller has subpoenaed President Trump’s bank records, expanding the probe of Russian influence in the 2016 election to the president’s personal finances.

“We confirmed that the news reports [that] the special counsel had subpoenaed financial records related to the president are completely false,” Sanders told reporters at the daily briefing.

“No subpoena has been issued or received. We have confirmed this with the bank and other sources. I think this is another example of the media going too far and too fast and we don’t see it going in that direction,” she said.

Bloomberg earlier reported Mueller was widening his probe to include Trump’s business dealings with Deutsche Bank AG, issuing a subpoena to the bank to submit documents on its relationship with Trump and his family.

Bloomberg said Deutsche Bank for months has rebuffed calls by Democratic lawmakers to provide more transparency over the roughly $300 million Trump owed to the bank for his real-estate dealings prior to becoming president. (Read more from “More Fake News? White House Denies Trump Records Subpoenaed” HERE)

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