WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration said Tuesday it was revoking security clearances for 37 current and former national security officials The latest act of retaliation It targets civil servants in the federal government’s intelligence news community.
Notes from the Director of National Intelligence Tarshi Gabbard A single-out individual accused of engaging in “politicization or weaponisation of intelligence” to advance individual or partisan goals, protected classified information, failed to “abid the standards of professional analytical trade standards” and other unspecified “harmful” behavior.
The memo provided no evidence to support the charges.
Many of the targeted staff left the government a few years ago, serving both senior national security positions and in low roles that were far from the public eye. Some have addressed the issues that have been infuriating Trump for a long time. Like the intelligence community review Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election on his behalf. And in 2019, he was a right-wing provocateur on social media last month. Close Trump’s ally Laura Rumer.
This action is part of a broader Trump administration campaign to exercise the government lever against perceived enemies, reflecting the president’s continued mistrust of career intelligence officials he has long thought to be working against his interests. Revoking clearance has emerged as a tactic for the administration, strategic critics say there is a risk of cooling opposition from the intelligent community, who are used to eliciting different perspectives before formulating an assessment.
“These are illegal and unconstitutional decisions that deviate from well-stacked decades-old laws and policies that sought to protect against this type of action,” national security attorney Mark Zaid, whose clearance was revoked by the Trump administration, said in a statement.
He called it hypocritical because the administration “submits to politicized or weaponized intelligence agency in which these individuals have been politicized or weaponized.”
Gabbard tried to protect the move on Tuesday, but she said she was overseen by Trump.
“It’s a privilege and not a right to entrust security clearance,” she wrote to X.
The suspension of security clearance comes amid a broader effort by Gabbard and other Trump administration officials to revisit the intelligence news community’s assessment of Russia’s election interference in 2017. A series of long-standing documents declassified It meant questioning the validity of that discovery.
Several government investigations have come to the same conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 election in a drastic way. Democratic Email Hack and Leak Operations And a social media campaign aimed at exploring discrepancies and shaking public opinion.
But Trump has long resisted the assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin interfered in his favor. The Ministry of Justice has approved the investigation of the large ju court. It could bring new scrutiny to Obama-era officials.
Security clearance is important not only for current government workers, but also for previous workers whose private sector jobs need to maintain access to sensitive information. Depriving clearance from such employees can make it difficult for them to do their job, but it is unclear how many former officials still have or need it.
On his first day in office, Trump said he would do so. Cancel security clearance for more than 4 dozen former information staff Who signed a 2020 letter saying it Hunter Biden Laptop Saga It gave birth to the characteristic of “Russian Information Operations.”
He also cancelled the clearance of Former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harrisand he tried to do the same thing A lawyer in the middle of a well-known law firm.
Some of the people targeted in the latest lawsuit were part of Biden’s national security team. Many only learned about GABBARD’s actions from news reports on Tuesday, two former government officials on the list said. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect on whether or not to take legal action.
