Presidential Aide Rob Porter was recently forced out after the public learned about credible claims of domestic violence against him made by two ex-wives.\u00a0 The Trump Administration was aware of the issue for at least seven months prior but took no action until there was a public outcry.\u00a0 One of the reasons the White House knew about the allegations was because Rob Porter was not able to get his Security Clearance.\u00a0 Due to the story, the public also learned that the Trump Administration has a significant problem with obtaining security clearances.\u00a0 As widely reported, over 130 White House staffers and senior administration officials do not have proper security clearances over one year into the administration.\u00a0 This is a dangerous and unacceptable threat to national security.\u00a0 Even worse, anyone working in the White House gets expedited handling of their clearance.\u00a0 The fact that so many members of the Trump administration still cannot obtain clearances is most disturbing and speaks volumes about potential problems in their backgrounds. \u00a0By comparison, no previous administration has ever had so many individuals lacking proper clearances, nor would any of them have accepted such a situation.<\/p>\n
Security clearances are a critical component of effective, competent government as well as crucial to national security.\u00a0 They serve several essential functions designed to protect the nation by safeguarding national security and other vital information and by protecting those serving the nation in embassies and combat zones around the world.\u00a0 Improper release of information places lives at risk, hurts international relations, and exposes the United States to attack or exploitation.\u00a0 Remember the old clich\u00e9, \u201cLoose lips sink ships\u2026\u201d\u00a0 Adversaries will go to great lengths to obtain all types of information, often for nefarious purposes.\u00a0 They resort to blackmail, bribery, and other means.\u00a0 A complete security clearance investigation identifies potential areas of concern that make an individual susceptive to such tactics or more likely to divulge information through disloyalty.\u00a0 From a more positive angle, those in power often may not know about certain aspects of a nominee that could negatively impact their performance or access to protected information.\u00a0 On the negative side, some leaders may choose to overlook fallibility of nominees and the clearance process needs to be the honest broker to properly assess the nominee.\u00a0 The key is that this process is paramount to national security.<\/p>\n
Every member of the White House staff, no mater what their position, requires at least some level of security clearance.\u00a0 Many require Top Secret or higher and to get that level of clearance requires a significant amount of information in the application and considerable investigation after submission.\u00a0 It is a necessarily cumbersome process to ensure proper adjudication of security clearance applications.\u00a0 Clearance provides access and the greater one\u2019s access, the greater the potential peril from misuse or negligence.\u00a0 Clearance adjudications take time, much more so for higher level clearances, and the process takes more time due to budget cuts negatively affecting manpower and resources.\u00a0 Clearances for Defense Department personnel work the same way.\u00a0 In my military career, anyone who did not have a valid, current clearance was immediately re-assigned pending resolution.\u00a0 Anyone who could not obtain or maintain a clearance was terminated.\u00a0 At no time did an individual who did not have the correct clearance perform duties or access information that required the clearance.\u00a0 That is the requirement throughout the government.\u00a0 Individuals in any agency, including the White House staff, must hold the proper level clearance at all times to perform those duties and access information classified at those levels.<\/p>\n
Much to the detriment of our national security, many members of the Trump administration were handling information classified for security levels above the clearances they had.\u00a0 Rob Porter, where this story began, routinely handled extremely sensitive information, classified above top secret, without having the proper clearance.\u00a0 Jared Kushner still does not hold a proper security clearance.\u00a0 Nevertheless, throughout the President\u2019s tenure, he has been reading the President\u2019s Daily Brief (PDB) from the Intelligence community.\u00a0 This document is extremely sensitive with very narrow distribution.\u00a0 Because President Trump refuses to read, he sends the document to Jared Kushner daily for him to read.\u00a0 For Kushner\u2019s other duties involving national security he routinely accesses other extremely sensitive data, all without a proper clearance.\u00a0 While Porter and Kushner are not alone, they represent two examples of the serious breaches of security undertaken daily by this White House.\u00a0 Porter was clearly susceptible to blackmail by anyone threatening to expose allegations or evidence of domestic violence against him (before it became public knowledge).\u00a0 Kushner is highly susceptible to blackmail or bribery by Russia, China, and other adversaries through failing business and financial connections.\u00a0 There are plenty of other examples in this White House.<\/p>\n
For most of 2016, the Trump campaign held rallies including raucous chants of \u201cLock Her Up\u201d referencing Hillary Clinton\u2019s negligent handling of some classified emails because of her use of a private server.\u00a0 Trump and his surrogates made extensive use of Clinton\u2019s reckless conduct, claiming it made her so unfit for office she should not be allowed to even run.\u00a0 Over a year into this administration, Trump and his White House staff have committed ongoing, far more egregious security violations.\u00a0 Kushner reading the PDB may be the most outrageous.\u00a0 If the President chooses not to read this brief, arguably the most important document there is, there are far better suited surrogates to read it for him such as individuals with experience and ability in national security matters and who have been vetted by Congressional confirmations and security clearance investigations.\u00a0 Putting aside the outrageous hypocrisy, this poses a significant threat to the United States and needs to be corrected immediately.<\/p>\n
Chief of Staff Kelly initially blamed the personnel office for the problem, claiming they did not pass along the information about Rob Porter and others.\u00a0 We later learned that the administration knew about the initial results of the Porter investigation in March, a full report in July, and answers to specific follow-up questions they asked in November!\u00a0 So, the administration clearly knew, especially at the point where they asked specific follow-up questions.\u00a0 Chief of Staff Kelly then stated they would change their procedures, specifically ending their practice of allowing individuals to operate without proper clearances.\u00a0 If this is true, many individuals, including Kushner, would have to leave the White House.\u00a0 At a minimum, he would have to be reassigned to much different duties.\u00a0 While he may be able to obtain a lower level clearance, it is highly unlikely he could legitimately receive the highest-level clearance which is necessary to continue his currently assigned duties and to read the PDB.\u00a0 Maybe that is Kelly\u2019s plan\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Presidential Aide Rob Porter was recently forced out after the public learned about credible claims of domestic violence against him made by two ex-wives.\u00a0 The Trump Administration was aware of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[52,148,236,254],"class_list":["post-252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-chief-of-staff-john-kelly","tag-jared-kushner","tag-rob-porter","tag-security-clearance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}