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TWENTY FIVE White House staff got security clearances despite 'disqualifying' red flags involving 'foreign influence,' drug use and crime, whistle-blower reveals

A career official in the White House security office says dozens of people in President Donald Trump's administration were granted sec...

A career official in the White House security office says dozens of people in President Donald Trump's administration were granted security clearances despite 'disqualifying issues' in their backgrounds, such as concerns about foreign influence, drug use and criminal conduct.
Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner are among the officials whose clearance denials were overruled, according to a CNN reporter.
Tricia Newbold, an 18-year government employee who oversees the issuance of clearances for some senior White House aides, says she compiled a list of at least 25 officials who were initially denied security clearances last year because of their backgrounds. 
But she says senior Trump aides overturned those decisions, moves that she said weren't made 'in the best interest of national security.'
Newbold's allegations were detailed in a letter and memo released Monday by Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, chairman of the House Oversight and Reform committee. 
That panel has been investigating security clearances issued to senior officials including Kushner, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former White House aide Rob Porter, who dated Trump's communications director Hope Hicks before a DailyMail.com investigation of his ex-wives; spousal abuse allegations.
He quit in disgrace when DailyMail.com revealed he was accused of physical abuse by both his ex-wives. 
The letter comes about a month after The New York Times reported that Trump ordered officials to grant Kushner a clearance over the objections of national security officials and after Newbold spoke out to NBC News and other news outlets about her concerns. 
It also sets the stage for another fight between the White House and the Democratic-controlled House. Cummings said he will move this week to authorize his first subpoena in the probe.
Cummings said the subpoena will be for the deposition of Carl Kline, who served as the White House personnel security director and supervised Newbold. He has since left the White House for the Defense Department.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, the committee's ranking Republican, blasted Cummings on Monday for approaching the security clearance issue in a partisan fashion. 
'Chairman Cummings' investigation is not about restoring integrity to the security clearance process, it is an excuse to go fishing through the personal files of dedicated public servants,' Jordan said. 
He also revealed that not all of the White House staff involved are political aides to the president, and 'include non-political officials such as a GSA custodian.'
Newbold laid out her experience in the White House during a March 23 interview with bipartisan committee staff. Portions of that interview were in the memo released by Cummings.
According to the memo, Newbold's list of overturned security clearance denials included 'two current senior White House officials, as well as contractors and individuals throughout different components of the Executive Office of the President.'
'According to Ms. Newbold, these individuals had a wide range of serious disqualifying issues involving foreign influence, conflicts of interest, concerning personal conduct, financial problems, drug use, and criminal conduct,' the memo says.
Newbold said she raised her concerns up the chain of command in the White House to no avail. Instead, she said, the White House retaliated, suspending her in January for 14 days without pay for not following a new policy requiring that documents be scanned as separate PDF files rather than one single PDF file.
Newbold said that when she returned to work in February, she was cut out of the security clearance process and removed from a supervisory responsibility.
Cummings' memo doesn't identify the officials on Newbold's list. The committee has previously singled out Flynn, Porter and Kushner as it sought records from the White House about how their clearances were handled.
Flynn maintained his clearance even after the White House learned he lied to the FBI about his conversations with Russia's ambassador and that he was under federal investigation by the Justice Department for his previous foreign work.
Kushner failed to initially disclose numerous foreign meetings on security clearance forms, and according to the Times, career officials recommended against granting him one before Trump personally overruled them.
Porter had high-level access with an interim security clearance even though the FBI repeatedly told the White House of past allegations of domestic violence lodged against him by two ex-wives.

10 comments

  1. These people will use this access to our nations highest secrets to further enrich themselves.

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  2. This should be no surprise to all Americans and the world that the U.S. administration have among their staff persons who should not be there and are persons with problems of security clearances such as foreign influence, drug use and criminal conduct. But when you run an operation that follows the tenets along the lines of a Mafia organization you have to expect the worst.

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  3. And by these same standards, they would if they could have denied THE PRESIDENT himself. Unproven allegations. And by the same token they gave clearance to Obama, Hillary, And everyone else involved in "Uranium 1". Once again I will defer to the presidents advise as the best advice.

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  4. For what it's worth, this is more common than not. Heads of agencies have the right to override the recommendations. The "media" can make a mountain or a molehill out of it but it isn't unusual, especially for people who do business internationally.

    I am not a big fan of his choices, and it is probably worse than usual. Compared to prior administrations I doubt that there would be that much of a difference. But, like it or not, he CAN override the recommendations.

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  5. I am pretty sure that Kushner is Israel's main "inside man". There are many more in government. And while I'm thinking about it...How can the US be a non-partisan peace broker with that guy heading it up?(Israel/Palestine). Not only do they claim "God" is a real estate agent but now they have Trump/KIushner/"Nutnhoney" as self proclaimed realtors. The Syrians/Palestinians are truly f*cked. Some peace deal it is. "I will take any piece I want"...which is all of it.

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  6. Maybe I can get a job there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyGNZ_AG2cM

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  7. A security clearance is an administrative determination that one is eligible for access, it does not grant access.

    If one is forthcoming of their past history when confronted and confirms the investigative evidence found out about them then there is no reason why they should not be recommended for a position of trust which this is all about.

    Once a persons skeletons are out of the closet it is more difficult to blackmail them to leak secrets.

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  8. "Let the Matzo BALLS ROLL" a new Hebrew tune?

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  9. What is the big deal. Berry got one with a fake SS number, fake birth cert, drug use past,

    ReplyDelete