{"id":39559,"date":"2025-03-11T03:06:03","date_gmt":"2025-03-11T08:06:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=39559"},"modified":"2025-03-11T03:06:32","modified_gmt":"2025-03-11T08:06:32","slug":"tulsi-gabbard-pulls-security-clearances-for-top-biden-officials-and-those-who-went-after-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=39559","title":{"rendered":"Tulsi Gabbard pulls security clearances for top Biden officials and those who went after Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

National Intelligence\u2002<\/a>Director\u2002<\/a>Tulsi Gabbard<\/a> said Monday she has stripped security clearances from dozens of former national security officials, the Manhattan district attorney who secured a felony conviction against Donald Trump and a lawyer who represented a government whistleblower who triggered the first impeachment case against Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decision is the latest example of the Trump administration\u2019<\/a>s unprecedented use of security clearances to go after perceived political opponents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gabbard\u2019s move, announced on X, followed up on an executive order Trump issued shortly after his inauguration to a second term as president in January, which called for security clearances to be revoked for 49 former national security officials. The ex-officials signed a letter more than four years ago suggesting Russia might have played a role in amplifying allegations about Biden\u2019s son Hunter as part of a wider effort to influence the outcome of the 2020 election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his executive order, Trump accused the letter\u2019s signers of \u201cmisleading and inappropriate political coordination\u201d with Joe Biden\u2019s 2020 presidential campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s order also called on the director of national intelligence to review the security clearances of others in and outside government who engaged in \u201cinappropriate activity\u201d related to the letter. The former senior officials have repeatedly denied Trump\u2019s claim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gabbard said she had revoked security clearances and barred access to classified information for Antony Blinken<\/a>, the secretary of state in the Biden administration; Jake Sullivan, Biden\u2019s national security adviser; and Lisa Monaco<\/a>, who oversaw prosecutions against Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In keeping with a previous vow by Trump, Gabbard said the daily intelligence briefing for the president would not be shared with Biden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Traditionally, the presidential daily briefing has been shared with former presidents, but Biden suspended the practice for Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gabbard also canceled the security clearance for New York Attorney General Letitia James, who won a civil fraud judgment<\/a> against Trump last year. In that case, a judge found that Trump defrauded banks by inflating his net worth in financial statements. Gabbard also revoked the security clearance of Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney<\/a> who secured a conviction against Trump over a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to an adult film actor who said the two had sex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under Gabbard\u2019s action, Mark Zaid, a lawyer who has represented whistleblowers in the intelligence community for years, was stripped of his security clearance. Zaid represented an intelligence officer who filed a whistleblower complaint to Congress in 2019 over a phone call during Trump\u2019s first term, in which he appeared to press Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to take actions to help Trump\u2019s 2020 re-election campaign. The complaint prompted an impeachment inquiry in the House. Trump was formally impeached by the House and acquitted by the Senate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zaid said that under the law, he was entitled to due process over his security clearance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot surprisingly, as I would expect in an authoritarian state, I have received none. It is patently obvious this action is nothing but petty retaliation because I represent my clients effectively in holding the Trump Administration accountable for its actions,\u201d Zaid said in an email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zaid has had a security clearance for nearly 25 years, he said. During Trump\u2019s first term, the Trump administration granted Zaid a higher-level top-secret clearance for a whistleblower case involving a Department of Homeland Security case, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kevin Carroll, who has represented intelligence officers suing the government, said the move against Zaid could force whistleblowers to look for other, riskier ways to call attention to their concerns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t want whistleblowers in the intelligence community going to Julian Assange,\u201d Carroll said, referring to the founder of WikiLeaks. \u201cWe should want them going to security cleared lawyers such as Mark Zaid.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A former national security official said the decision will hamper the Trump administration as it contends with an array of global threats, because it will be deprived of consulting with its predecessors who may have insights to share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t impact the people who had clearances. It impacts the people in the government who might need to consult with them,\u201d the former official said. \u201cThey won\u2019t have the benefit of reaching out to former senior officials who have dealt with serious ongoing threats.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump said last week he is scrapping clearances for attorneys at the prominent Washington law firm of Covington & Burling. The firm, which employs lawyers who worked for previous Democratic presidents, had assisted former special counsel Jack Smith, who led prosecutions against Trump over his handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Trump won re-election last year, both cases were dismissed. The Justice Department\u2019s policy bars prosecuting a sitting president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

National Intelligence\u2002Director\u2002Tulsi Gabbard said Monday she has stripped security clearances from dozens of former national security officials, the Manhattan district attorney who secured a felony conviction against Donald Trump and a lawyer who represented a government whistleblower who triggered the first impeachment case against Trump. The decision is the latest example of the Trump administration\u2019s unprecedented use of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":39560,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7763,32646,1230,2747],"class_list":["post-39559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-deprivation","tag-national-security-officials","tag-trump","tag-tulsi-gabbard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39561,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39559\/revisions\/39561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}