Clearance, Clarence.
Here’s our own Poetrooper, poking holes in the Dems latest attempt to torpedo Trump’s Presidency. Swing and a miss. Again. Would that they accept reality and get on with the business of running the country.
Here’s Poe:
Poetrooper
Dems wrong on White House security clearances
Desperately grasping at any political or procedural nitpicks they can find to impede the progress of the Trump administration, the gadflies who make up the Democrat contingent in Congress have recently charged presidential interference in the issue of granting security clearances. In what they must feel is a true “gotcha” moment, these desperate Democrats have surfaced what they trumpet to be a whistleblower from the White House who claims that her authority to grant or deny clearances is being usurped by others in the Trump inner circle so as to ensure that members of that inner circle, meaning family members and close associates of the president, have the necessary clearances to participate in governance.Democrats are nearly giddy with expectation that they have finally found Donald Trump in some violation of the nation’s security laws. They haven’t. A quick internet search could have spared them some major embarrassment, once again, by leading them directly to case law establishing unequivocally just how far off course they are.
Back in 1988, in Department of Navy v. Egan, the United States Supreme Court noted in its decision:
The President, after all, is the “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” U.S. Const., Art. II, 2. His authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security and to determine whether an individual is sufficiently trustworthy to occupy a position in the Executive Branch that will give that person access to such information flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant.
Whoops — does that not state rather clearly what I read it to say? Unless I’m mistaken, the U.S. Supreme Court has determined that it is the president, not some faceless bureaucrat swamp denizen with her territorial panties in a wad, who has the ultimate authority to determine who will be privy to the secure matters the president deems necessary to carry on his governance. Mind you, I do not take this business of security clearances lightly, having held a secret clearance myself during my military service and understanding the need for caution and discretion. That said, I also recognize that the commander-in-chief has every right to pick his own staff and advisers without interference from an obstructive Congress.
Apparently, so does the Supreme Court. What is it they say about great minds running together?
Thanks, Poe, keep ’em coming!
Category: Government Incompetence, Guest Post, Politics
If only someone who comments here used to be the Senior Enlisted Advisor at the Army’s Security Clearance Facility and could analyze this idiotic claim by the democrats…
Oh…wait…
NSFW language….
That is the Democrats in the distance.
I could be wrong but didn’t Obama have a lot of uncleared folks working in the White House handling classified for a long time? If I’m recalling right the Dims said no BFD because The One could do what he wanted.
Yup, and the Clintonistas as well. Sort of poster children for that.
Yep the Clintons put a bunch of druggies through the system.
Sorry, allegedly druggies.
Having dealt as a Special Security Officer for a good part of my Marine career, I can state for certain that they have nothing. Ultimate classification authority for ALL classified material rests with the President of the United States. For those who didn’t know, there are a significant amount of positions, such as federal judgeships, that access is given solely based upon that billet, and no investigation is done on them. Same thing for senators and congresscritters. If they are in, and get on the committee, they get to see it.
let’s not forget here…a security eligibility determination is risk decision, not a hunt for the golden child.
Most clearances are given to those who have some level of derog in their files. In fact, as we all should know, not all misconduct or past behavior is considered to carry the same risk.
If clearances went only to the blameless, we would not need adjudicators.
More of that pesky constitutional stuff the Democrats want to shove aside.
Remember this too folks. As long as they keep screwing about with this full time, they cannot do as much damage to America. I am all for it.
That’s a big part of the plan. Their drive to get rid of President Trump is taking up a lot of their energy… Energy they’re not using to derail his initiatives. I’ve been tracking the news since 1982, the mainstream media loves to nitpick conservative president initiative.
This time around? President Trump is successfully implementing one policy after another. He’s deliberately taking the heat, and acting as a “meat shield” for the true prize. Keep them distracted like how adult birds work to distract predators going after their nestlings.
President Trump knows exactly what he’s doing. Once they drop their focus on taking him down, they’re going to realize that they’ve been eating right out of his hands as a result of his playing them like a fiddle. This should happen after he finishes his presidency.
He’s playing 3-D Chess to them randomly moving checker pieces around:
https://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=83783
Someone should put a bug in their collective ear every time they start to slack off. The more ridiculous avenues they pursue to try to unseat the President, the sillier they look and the less effective they become.
Typical D-rat resistance derangement move. It fits right into their proggy propaganda trope that secret agent Trump is working for the Ruskies and their evil genius Putin.
If I recall correctly, when Clinton became President and brought his cronies into the White House the Secret Service had to institute a special random drug testing program because many of his staffers couldn’t qualify for clearances because of drug use.
Don’t remember where I read that, but I am pretty sure it wasn’t the NYT.
It’s a good thing that obama was able to approve his EPSQ/SF88. Anyone else would have flagged it for felony drug use; foreign travel; multiple aliases; foreign associates; associations with known felons; associating with groups dedicated to the violent overthrow of the Federal government; etc.; etc.
As a military and federal civil service retiree, I’m currently cleared for access up to and including “ridiculous” available through open-source intelligence.
Need to know? Usually I don’t even have a want to know.
BBBWWWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
*Nailed it*
my own clearance level went to plaid. LOL
As a retiree and current civil service technician, I’m cleared to work on shit that I can’t talk about except on The Book of Face. My work is so secret that I don’t even know what it is.
I lost my clearance because it ran away from home. I didn’t realize this until its food dish hadn’t been emptied in three days. I put out a reward notice, but no one brought it back.
Must have ended up in the Lost Clearances Shelter. I suppose I could have microchipped it, but… well, that seemed to be intrusive.
I didn’t know you had a cat named “Clearance.” Was he another stray you were feeding?
Keeps on spinning yo wheels dimwit cats. We’ve all heard of Executive Orders, By Order of The President, VOP (Vocal Order of President), DP (Direction of President), the list goes on. Many of us saw cut orders with that as the Granting Authority.
Congress Critters (ON BOTH SIDES) keep forgetting that they are only ONE branch of the government. As pointed out above, the more they screw around trying to get rid of dTrumpster, the more they make themselves out to be worthless idiots.
I personally blame the republicraps for the lack of any true progress on fixing the countries problems during the FIRST 2 years of Trumps Administration. They had a prime opportunity and they blew it. They need to be fired too.
“I personally blame the republicraps for the lack of any true progress on fixing the countries problems during the FIRST 2 years of Trumps Administration. They had a prime opportunity and they blew it. They need to be fired too.”
Damn straight. The R’s are little better than the D’s and they both need to vacate DC and turn it over to statesmen who really care for this country. Because, frankly, I believe the primary objective of each party is to start the reelection process the day after being elected. They suck.
Term. Limits.
AMERICA, *FUCK YEAH!!*
DRAIN THE SWAMP AND FLOG THEIR ASSES!!!
Yes, the president has the authority to overrule any adjudicator when it comes to clearances. But I can’t think of any previous administration with so many people with so many red flags, especially for foreign associations and financial ties. Most administrations screen these people out and don’t even make firm job offers if any of these red flags are discovered early. Jared Kushner continues to have closed door meetings with foreign leaders of countries with which he has financial ties. He’s just the prime example. When several hundred million dollars of his personal fortune are at stake, I somehow can’t imagine he would put America’s interests ahead of his own. Example in point: remember when we sided with the Saudis against Qatar, and participated in an embargo? Jared Kushner had just been turned down for a bailout for his property debt by the Qatari sovereign wealth fund. Never mind the fact that we have a regional HQ based in Qatar, and that they have usually stepped up to the plate when we ask them. Kushner has been bailed out by a Saudi-backed PE fund. He continues to have closed door meetings with Saudis that include no US Embassy or State, DOD people. Giving Kushner a clearance over the protests of adjudicators in fact gives him a green light to engage in behavior that works out pretty well for him, but maybe not America. Not only clearances, but an unprecedented number of waivers for conflict of interest have been a feature of this administration, with many people not being required to divest of commercial interests while holding public office. The message is that there is no longer any reason to try to separate one’s personal fortunes from that of the nation. And high public office can be used for personal enrichment. -But if CPT Smith is found during a 5-year update to have say, started a business in Kuwait with a local official that takes in DOD contracts, then the adjudicators will of course consider this a red flag. -If COL So&So has trouble paying his mortgage back in NC and… Read more »
Don’t forget that MBS reportedly boasted that he had Kushner ‘in his pocket’, and that Kushner conducts governmental business on his personal WhatsApp account from his phone, so there are no official records. According to the IC, several other countries also felt they could manipulate him, too.
The guy is a walking, talking red flag. Nothing against him personally, but I’d want him far from any clearances, too.
Here in Burma all of the people who really worry about communications security are urging that users stop/stop using Whatsapp. Signal seems to be the go-to right now.
Remember that one red flag raised was when Kushner and GEN Flynn both asked the Russian embassy to use their secure communications during the transition period; the stated goal was to avoid US IC monitoring of their transactions.
Adjudicators at the WH may have also been advised by the IC that foreign leaders talking among themselves considered certain personalities to be highly vulnerable, if not in fact already compromised.
Willbur Ross at Commerce has astounding foreign financial dealings. Yet he was granted waivers for conflict of interest, and of course holds a clearance. The issue of a board position on a Russian-Cypriot bank convicted of money laundering does not seemed to have given the administration much pause.
and yet, CPT Smith will probably get his clearance after he responds to the letter of intent.
As for “But I can’t think of any previous administration with so many people with so many red flags, especially for foreign associations and financial ties. Most administrations screen these people out and don’t even make firm job offers if any of these red flags are discovered early.” You need to get your memory checked.
Let’s remember together; The past President of the USA had legitimate business, professional, and personal ties to a known terrorist and his known terrorist wife. The President during the 1990s had to have random drug testing on his staff because they could not stay clean to have access.
No, this is not unique.
Stop pretending you have a “something” here. It is a nothing burger that those of us who have been in the business of security clearances know to be a bogus “charge”.
This is a lazy partisan attack.
Also, if you approach any person for “help” paying your mortgage in some sort of money moving scheme, you are probably committing a felony.
Yet, such a felony is not necessarily a clear reason to revoke or deny if the subject can mitigate the issue.
And BTW…there are no “red flags” in this business. There is misconduct or behavior that appears to violate the standards in DoD 5200.2r.
The fact that Mr. Brennan has been able to keep a clearance for so long is a reasonable argument that there are no actual behaviors that could terminate your clearance as a political appointee.
We could also look at the case of Ms Clinton. She had all of the clearance needed to be SoS. Yet, a casual familiarity with the Clinton’s business and personal dealings would appear to render her not acceptable. However, if the President nominates and the Senate approves, who is the clerk to disagree?
And that is what this is all about. A clerk disagrees with the will of the elected leadership of the nation.
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
Then you should look more closely at the Clintons and the Obamas and their staffs. Hillary alone did more to damage national security than all the “questionable” folks in the Trump gang. And this is known because the FBI and Justice told us right before they told us they weren’t gonna do shit about it.
Risk assessment is a big part of it, and if there were really any indication of any security problems, the socialist dems would have been all over it with a special prosecutor and all that like with Mueller.
The risk assessments were done, and the findings overruled.
-As they were done by career civil servants with long experience in counterintelligence, I assume no partisan bias.
What will probably happen, if it hasn’t already happened, is that the intelligence community will be forced to do preemptive damage control.
If so many senior people who did not meet a given agency’s standards for clearance and access are now allowed access, strictly from a counterintelligence aspect, what is the likelihood of loss of sources and methods?
To what degree can an analyst/reporter sanitize an intelligence product before it loses value? Why should foreign human sources continue to work with our intelligence community if it is well-publicized that potentially compromised people have access to what they share. The same goes for our allies and other governments who have a sharing agreement with our intelligence community.
Of course the president has the authority to overrule adjudicators and order granting of clearance and access. No one disputes that.
But the public should hear a little bit about what sort of “compelling need” was perceived when the decisions were made. We should hear why a young real estate developer from NJ was the only logical choice and the key person for the jobs and access he has been given. Only when explained in a logical fashion made with compelling arguments would all objections be dropped by anyone who has legitimate concerns.