Tag: security clearances
Kushner Proved He Is A Security Risk — Again

Kushner Proved He Is A Security Risk — Again

Some blessed day, America will be rid of the Trump administration. But the “normalization” of misconduct by this president’s entourage will leave indelible stains — one of which will bear the name Jared Kushner.

Unlike his constantly blithering and blabbering father-in-law, Kushner usually goes about his self-serving business in the White House very quietly, hiring lawyers to spout his alibis. When he granted an interview the other day to Axios on HBO, the result was predictable. This epitome of nepotism demonstrated once again why he should hold no public position of trust.

Although Kushner was mocked for his evasions and denials when Axios correspondent Jonathan Swan asked him about Trump’s bigoted “birther” campaign and attacks on Muslims, that was a sideshow. Nobody can expect him to speak frankly about those topics, and his opinions about the president don’t matter anyway.

What he said about the Russian incursion into the 2016 election was far more troubling. He claimed that he never noticed the subject line on the email from Donald Trump Jr. that summoned him to the infamous Trump Tower meeting with the Russians — “FW: Russia — Clinton — private and confidential.” Worse still was Kushner’s retort when Swan asked what he would do if the Russians were to approach with offers of dirt on the Democrats in 2020.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s hard to do hypotheticals, but the reality is that we were not given anything that was salacious.”

Let’s be real: As the top officials in the U.S. intelligence community have pointed out many times, usually with hair on fire, there is nothing hypothetical about the Kremlin’s ongoing and aggressive meddling in our elections. There is no doubt that President Vladimir Putin prefers the malleable and amoral Trump to any possible alternative.

And there is no reason to expect that Kushner would do anything differently from what the Trump gang did in 2016 and ever since. They will encourage the Russians and then cover up their alliance with America’s adversaries by lying, just as they did last time.

Kushner’s arrogant attitude is even more stunning because the House Oversight Committee has spent months investigating his security clearance. Letting him run around the White House and the world with access to classified materials seemed like a very bad idea before the Axios interview, owing to his conflicts of interest and dubious behavior. He routinely disrespects the most fundamental ethical and legal standards, as he did when he met in the White House with bankers who had loaned his family firm half a billion dollars.

He is also a target of intelligence operators from many countries, all of whom view the callow Kushner as a potential stooge, open to blandishments, flattery and offers of money. Intercepted conversations about targeting him made our own intelligence officials blanch with worry. So did his bumbling but ill-intentioned attempt to establish a “back channel” with Russian officials during the Trump transition.

Now he has informed us, on the record, that he just might not report a contact by meddling Russians to the FBI. He says he doesn’t know how he will respond when they show up again. This may be the simplest question any White House official has ever been asked, with the most obvious answer. And he got it dead wrong.

Perhaps someone should have told Kushner that reporting any such illicit offer by a foreign adversary to federal authorities is the minimum expected of any official holding a security clearance. Then again, he seems impervious to any understanding of the dubious activities that propelled his father-in-law into power. He recently mischaracterized the Russian Trump campaign as the purchase of “a few Facebook posts” and added that the special counsel investigation has done greater harm to American democracy.

Kushner’s own utterances disqualify him from any level of security clearance. If the United States were to have a government that valued national security, he would be fired from his unearned White House job, instructed to clean out his desk, and briskly escorted from the premises. It is yet another sign of how far we have fallen that he won’t be going anywhere.

 

 

‘What’s Next, Instagram DMs?’ AOC Burns White House Security Breaches

‘What’s Next, Instagram DMs?’ AOC Burns White House Security Breaches

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) blasted the Trump administration’s repeated failures to follow protocols that protect national security, which she pointed out could put “thousands of lives at risk.”

“We’re getting reports that there’s communication happening with Saudi officials via WhatsApp,” Ocasio-Cortez told CNN reporter Manu Raju on Tuesday. “What’s next, Instagram DMs? This is completely insecure.”

The congresswoman added that “anything can get hacked” if Trump administration officials use “insecure channels of communication.”

“If we don’t know what hostile forces know about us, we are putting thousands of lives at risk,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

The House Oversight Committee, of which Ocasio-Cortez is a member, is currently investigating such potential security breaches by Trump officials.

Trump’s former deputy national security adviser, KT McFarland, reportedly used her personal email to discuss giving sensitive nuclear technology to the Saudi Arabian government.

And Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, is under scrutiny for using the messaging program WhatsApp to communicate with the Saudi crown prince — which could violate federal law requiring government officials to preserve their communications for the record, since WhatsApp is encrypted and not archived by the government.

Kushner’s decision to ignore the law and protocol is also alarming because of Trump’s decision to grant him access to classified material despite warnings from intelligence officials not to do so.

Congress is also investigating the administration’s use of security clearances after a whistleblower revealed that many others were given clearances despite “serious disqualifying issues,” such as a criminal background or troublesome foreign entanglements.

Before she spoke to CNN, Ocasio-Cortez highlighted the problems with how Kushner’s access had been handled during a hearing of the House Oversight Committee.

“Every day that we go on without getting to the bottom of this matter is a day that we are putting hundreds, if not potentially thousands, of Americans at risk,” she said.

Ocasio-Cortez advocated for issuing subpoenas to the Trump administration to solicit the details of how security clearances are granted, since the Trump team continues to cover it up.

“Every day that there is an insecure line of communication that could be leaked, that could be hacked, that could be screen-shotted, without our proper channels, is a day that we are pushing our national security at risk,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

For two years, the Republicans leading Congress ignored the rampant violations of national security coming from the Trump White House — not to mention a long list of other scandals.

But Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez are finally changing that.

Published with permission of The American Independent.

House Oversight Vice Chair: ‘We Won’t Back Down’ On Investigations

House Oversight Vice Chair: ‘We Won’t Back Down’ On Investigations

Special counsel Robert Mueller may be done investigating Trump — but Congress is just getting started.

Rep. Katie Hill (D-CA), vice-chair of the House Oversight Committee, said in a Monday CNN interview that Congress will not back down from its many investigations into Trump’s shady activities — including “highly suspicious” activity that went beyond the scope of Mueller’s investigation.

“We have evidence over the last two years that the Mueller investigation was not covering that is highly, highly suspicious,” Hill said.

Hill said Democrats in Congress are looking into the “security clearances issue, we’re dealing with possibly giving nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia, we’re dealing with … thousands of children that haven’t been reunited with their families.”

“It’s so many issues that we have to continue our investigations on, and it’s just not related to the Mueller report,” she added.

Over the weekend, Attorney General William Barr released his own spin on the Mueller report, but refuses to release the report itself in its entirety. Yet even Barr’s biased summary of the Mueller report includes Mueller’s conclusion that the report “does not exonerate” Trump on allegations of obstruction of justice.

As Hill noted, however, Mueller’s investigation was limited in scope, and Trump’s alleged criminal activity has not stopped since he was sworn into office.

Trump reportedly gave his daughter and son-in-law top security clearances over the objections of intelligence agencies and his own White House counsel. Congress needs to know if and how seriously Trump’s nepotism endangered U.S. national security.

Hill also noted the Trump administration may have ignored national security concerns in a rush to hand over nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia. New evidence shows Trump officials may have discussed the issue using personal email, not their secure government accounts.

Beyond the numerous investigations being conducted by the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), chair of the Judiciary Committee, has sent out letters to more than 80 individuals and entities demanding documents related to Trump’s potential obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and corruption.

Thus far, Nadler has received tens of thousands of documents as part of his far-reaching investigation.

And Congress isn’t the only branch of government investigating Trump. A number of federal prosecutors and state offices are investigating Trump, his family, his businesses, his foundation, and his inaugural committee for a number of potential crimes.

At this year’s State of the Union address, Trump tried to threaten Congress out of investigating him and his corrupt administration. But the new Democratic majority refuses to back down.

“We will not be bullied by the president of the United States,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), chair of the House Democrats, said at the time.

Hill’s comments Monday morning show once again that Democrats will not be intimidated, and will keep working to uncover the truth.

Published with permission of The American Independent. 

Report: Trump Intervened To Fix Top Secret Clearance For Ivanka

Report: Trump Intervened To Fix Top Secret Clearance For Ivanka

President Donald Trump pressured both ex-Chief of Staff John Kelly and ex-White House Counsel Don McGahn to give his daughter and top adviser Ivanka Trump a security clearance, according to a new report from CNN. When neither of them succumbed to his demands, however, he ended up granting the clearance himself, the report found.

The revelation that the president had to intervene on his daughter’s behalf comes as the White House faces increasing scrutiny from Democratic lawmakers in the House of Representatives.

The New York Times recently reported that Jared Kushner, Ivanka’s husband, also needed the president to intervene on his behalf to get a security clearance. CNN found that although concerns about either spouse could have endangered the others’ chances to get a clearance, the officials who typically approve security clearances had concerns about both of them individually.

Trump has previously denied intervening in the security clearance process. When concerns were raised about Kushner’s interim security clearance last year, he said that he would defer to Kelly’s judgment on the matter and stay out of it.

Ivanka also denied in a recent interview that her father had any involvement in her and her husband’s security clearances, which now appears to be entirely false. However, CNN noted that she may not have been aware that her father stepped in to grant the clearances.

As president, Trump has the final authority to grant, deny, or revoke security clearances. But critics have pointed out that intervening in the usual process for his family’s benefits reeks of nepotism and potentially endangers national security.

It is not clear yet what considerations led officials to stymie Kushner’s and Ivanka’s security clearance applications in the first place. We do know, though, that Kushner’s initial application had to be updated multiple times because he omitted more than 100 foreign contacts he had had when he first turned it in. On Tuesday, two lawmakers referred Kushner’s case to the Justice Department for a potential criminal investigation.