Trump names foreign policy team led by Alabama senator

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Monday unveiled a partial list of his foreign policy advisers in an interview with the Washington Post, after saying last week that he mostly consults himself on international affairs. 

The advisory team includes terrorism expert Walid Phares, energy industry executive Carter Page, international energy lawyer George Papadopoulos, former Pentagon inspector general Joe Schmitz, and former Army Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, Trump told the Post in an on-the-record editorial board meeting.

He said he would soon name more people who are helping him shape his foreign policies as part of the team, led by U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama who endorsed Trump last month. 

Most of those named by Trump are not well known in foreign policy academic or expert circles, and he eschewed the traditional candidate's practice of having his campaign issue a full list of his foreign policy team's members.

Trump, the leader of the three remaining Republican presidential candidates, has been under increasing pressure in recent weeks to say who advises him on foreign and security matters.

One hundred and twenty Republican national security experts who have served in past presidential administrations have signed a letter saying they cannot support Trump and will work to ensure he is not elected.

Phares told Reuters he began advising Trump on Friday. He previously had served as a national security adviser to 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who has roundly criticizedTrump. 

Phares said in an email he has not met Trump in person since last year.

Others named by Trump could not be immediately reached to confirm their role with Trump's campaign. 

Schmitz was Pentagon inspector general under President George W. Bush and has worked for Blackwater Worldwide, a now-defunct private U.S. security firm whose personnel were involved in a deadly shooting that killed Iraqi civilians in 2007.

Kellogg has considerable military experience, having served as the chief operating officer of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-run provisional government imposed on Iraq after the U.S.-led 2003 invasion under Bush. He has worked at CACI International, a Virginia-based intelligence and information technology consulting firm.

Trump has vigorously criticized the invasion. Asked at a news conference about his decision to choose Kellogg despite his role in Iraq, Trump said: “I don't have to agree with them but I have to hear different opinions.”

According to the Post, Papadopoulos previously advised Trump's former rival Ben Carson, who has now backed Trump. The London Center of International Law Practice's Center website lists him as the head of its Center for International Energy and Natural Resources Law & Security.

Page serves as a managing partner of Global Energy Capital, a private energy services company, the Post said.

“I have not interacted with any of the team he named. On the positive side, none evokes negative reactions,” said Doug Paal, a former White House staffer under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, who is now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “I am glad he has a team, and I hope he uses them to earn respect abroad.”

Sessions, who in February became the first sitting U.S. senator to endorse Trump, is also not seen as an influential foreign policy or national security player in the U.S. Congress. He does not serve on the influential Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, although he is a member of the Armed Services Committee.

Last week, Trump said in a television interview on MSNBC, which had been pressing him to name his foreign advisory team, that he relies on his own instinct.

“I'm speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain,” he told MSNBC. “I know what I'm doing. … My primary consultant is myself.”