Trump may pull security clearances.
WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump is considering revoking the security clearances of six former top national security officials who have been critical of his administration, a move that opponents and experts say would be an unprecedented politicization of the clearance process.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday that the president is “exploring the mechanisms” to strip clearance from former CIA Director John Brennan as well as five other former officials who have held some of the most sensitive positions in government: former FBI Director James Comey; James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence; former CIA Director Michael Hayden; former national security adviser Susan Rice; and Andrew McCabe, who served as Trump’s deputy FBI director until he was fired in March.
The leaders have served in both Democratic and Republican administrations, including Trump’s.
Sanders accused the officials of having “politicized and in some cases monetized their public service and security clearances” by making “baseless accusations” that the Trump administration had improper contact with Russia or was influenced by Russia.
“The fact that people with security clearances are making these baseless charges provides inappropriate legitimacy to accusations with zero evidence,” she said.
Sanders did not cite specific comments made by any of the officials. But the president has been seething over the backlash to
his meeting last week with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and the ongoing investigations into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, whether his campaign aides were involved in the effort and whether he obstructed justice.
Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, a ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, tweeted that “politicizing security clearances to retaliate against former national security officials who criticize the President would set a terrible new precedent.”
“An enemies list is ugly, undemocratic and unAmerican,” he added.
The threat to deny the officials access to classified information marks the latest escalation in the president’s ongoing war with the members of the U.S. intelligence community. It came hours after Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky tweeted that he would be meeting with Trump to discuss revoking Brennan’s clearance for his scathing criticism of the president’s performance at the summit with Putin.
“I told the president in private what I’ve been saying
in public: that I think there’s a great danger to having talking heads on TV who are ex-CIA agents and still have classified clearance,” Paul said Monday evening in an appearance on Fox News.
“There’s a real danger they might inadvertently reveal classified information,” he said.
Former CIA directors and other top national security officials are typically allowed to keep their clearances, at least for some period, as a courtesy and so they can be in a position to advise their successors. At least one of the former officials, McCabe, does not currently have security clearance, his spokeswoman said.
Experts appeared split on whether the president has the authority to unilaterally terminate a security clearance, but said such a move would be unprecedented and ill-advised.
“Legalities aside, it seems like a terrible mistake to use the security clearance system as an instrument of political vendettas,” said Steven Aftergood at the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy.