Clearance issue may cost White House
WASHINGTON — It’s a week of reckoning for White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and dozens of other officials who have been working without permanent security clearances for the better part of a year.
Those who have been operating with interim access to top-secret information since before June are set to see that access halted Friday under a new policy enacted last week by chief of staff John Kelly. Some officials are expected to leave their posts as a result, while others will continue working with reduced — or no — access to classified information.
The White House maintains that Kushner’s work will be unaffected by the change, but it won’t explain why.
“Nothing that has taken place will affect the valuable work that Jared is doing,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday. “He continues and will continue to be a valued member of the team. He’ll continue to do the important work that he’s been focused on for the last year.”
Kelly, in a statement, said the White House looks forward to Kushner maintaining his role working on the Middle East peace process and U.S.-Mexico relations.
“As I told Jared days ago, I have full confidence in his ability to continue performing his duties in his foreign policy portfolio, including overseeing our Israeli-Palestinian peace effort and serving as an integral part of our relationship with Mexico,” Kelly said.
It was not immediately clear how Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, would be protected from Kelly’s crackdown on interim White House clearances. Sanders did not rule out President Donald Trump using his executive authority to grant Kushner a permanent security clearance, which would circumvent the traditional process.
Kushner is reportedly said to review the highly secret presidential daily briefing each morning and has been in the room for some of Trump’s most-consequential domestic and foreign policy decisions.
Kushner has held an interim security clearance for more than a year, his attorney, Abbe Lowell, said last week. Officials said that absent direct presidential intervention, he is not expected to receive a permanent clearance before the Friday deadline.
The policy change is also set to hit at least two dozen other White House officials, according to a senior administration official briefed on the change but not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The official said many staffers holding interim topsecret or SCI clearances would lose them, but that most don’t need them for their day-to-day jobs.