WE ALL KNOW TRUMP COULD NOT PASS A SECURITY EXAM.
“This White House has been contemptible about security,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said in an interview with CNN’s New Day on Tuesday. “I’m going to be calling later today for the 30-40 names of the interim security clearances because I believe they are a threat to national security. They owe us those names.”
Blumenthal was referring to a CNN report published on Friday that claimed 30 to 40 Trump administration appointees still did not possess full security clearance normally required to do their jobs. The White House has refused to disclose the number of staff still operating under interim clearances.
Another senior aide among the 30-40 staff still functioning on interim clearances is Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has been fighting to get a full clearance since he first started working as a senior White House adviser. His application notably contains an abnormal number of revisions — 39, to be exact –all introduced after officials noted several key omissions.
We are concerned over the apparent low and inconsistent threshold the Trump White House uses for obtaining an interim security clearance.”
The controversy over White House security clearances is especially notable, given that much of the 2016 election hinged on voters’ anger with how candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton handled classified information, as well as her use of a private email server. During debates and along the campaign trail, then-candidate Trump attacked Clinton on the issue repeatedly, calling it a “disgrace.”
“One of the first things we must do is enforce all classification rules and to enforce all laws relating to the handling of classified information,” Trump said in September 2016.
Trump himself later mishandled classified information during a meeting with Russian diplomats in the Oval Office last May, according to the Washington Post. White House aides initially tried to deny the report, claiming that Trump had done nothing wrong and had shared only innocuous information with the Russians. Trump later undercut them and confirmed key details about the story on Twitter.
https://thinkprogress.org/blumenthal-white-house-clearances-50df3ffbffeb/
“This White House has been contemptible about security,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said in an interview with CNN’s New Day on Tuesday. “I’m going to be calling later today for the 30-40 names of the interim security clearances because I believe they are a threat to national security. They owe us those names.”
Blumenthal was referring to a CNN report published on Friday that claimed 30 to 40 Trump administration appointees still did not possess full security clearance normally required to do their jobs. The White House has refused to disclose the number of staff still operating under interim clearances.
Another senior aide among the 30-40 staff still functioning on interim clearances is Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has been fighting to get a full clearance since he first started working as a senior White House adviser. His application notably contains an abnormal number of revisions — 39, to be exact –all introduced after officials noted several key omissions.
We are concerned over the apparent low and inconsistent threshold the Trump White House uses for obtaining an interim security clearance.”
The controversy over White House security clearances is especially notable, given that much of the 2016 election hinged on voters’ anger with how candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton handled classified information, as well as her use of a private email server. During debates and along the campaign trail, then-candidate Trump attacked Clinton on the issue repeatedly, calling it a “disgrace.”
“One of the first things we must do is enforce all classification rules and to enforce all laws relating to the handling of classified information,” Trump said in September 2016.
Trump himself later mishandled classified information during a meeting with Russian diplomats in the Oval Office last May, according to the Washington Post. White House aides initially tried to deny the report, claiming that Trump had done nothing wrong and had shared only innocuous information with the Russians. Trump later undercut them and confirmed key details about the story on Twitter.
https://thinkprogress.org/blumenthal-white-house-clearances-50df3ffbffeb/
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