UPDATED: Trump opens highly sensitive intelligence to anyone he wants, bypassing existing security clearance procedures

BACKGROUND

See updated articles 5) and 6) below

See,

1) Hugh Canon, “Donald Trump Orders Security Clearances to Be Given to Whomever He Wants; Newsweek, January 21, 2025(Updated at 4:34 PM EST);

2) Steve Benen, “Maddow Blog: The problem(s) with Trump’s executive order on disclosing ‘sensitive’ information, MSNBC.com, January 21, 2025
(10:13 a.m EST);

3) President Donald Trump, The White House, “Memorandum to the White House Counsel, Memorandum to Resolve the Backlog of Security Clearances for Executive Office of the President Personnel,” January 20, 2025;

4) James Rowles, “Amid distractions, a need to focus on Trump's pro-Russian appointments (at both top and lower levels), and actions to further Russia's interests,” Trenchant Observations, January 19, 2025 (5:08 PM).

UPDATED

5) Michael Birnbaum, “How Trump’s security clearances order could make the U.S. vulnerable; The plan to give temporary clearances without background checks, seen by some as war on the “deep state,” opens the door to breaches and espionage, experts say,” Washington Post, January 22,2025 (8:21 a.m. EST);

6)Ali Breland,”Trump’s Pardons Are Sending a Crystal-Clear Message; After the January 6 attacks, right-wing militias went underground. Now they have permission to come out of hiding, The Atlantic, January 21, 2025 (3:01 p.m. EST)

Text of the Memorandum

MEMORANDUM TO THE WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL
SUBJECT: Memorandum to Resolve the Backlog of Security
Clearances for Executive Office of the President Personnel
January 20, 2025

The Executive Office of the President requires qualified and trusted personnel to execute its mandate on behalf of the American people. There is a backlog created by the Biden Administration in the processing of security clearances of individuals hired to work in the Executive Office of the President. Because of this backlog and the bureaucratic process and broken security clearance process, individuals who have not timely received the appropriate clearances are ineligible for access to the White House complex, infrastructure, and technology and are therefore unable to perform the duties for which they were hired. This is unacceptable.

Therefore, by the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby order:

1. The White House Counsel to provide the White House Security Office and Acting Chief Security Officer with a list of personnel that are hereby immediately granted interim Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) security clearances for a period not to exceed six months; and

2. That these individuals shall be immediately granted access to the facilities and technology necessary to perform the duties of the office to which they have been hired; and

3. The White House Counsel, as my designee, may supplement this list as necessary; and

4. The White House Counsel, as my designee, shall have the authority to revoke the interim clearance of any individual as necessary. (emphasis added)
…

Commentary

It did not take long for the new pto-Russian president of the United States to bypass strict legal procedures for the granting of top security clearances to officials in the government.

Under the new rules as dictated by Trump, “interim Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) security clearances” are to be issued to anyone Trump wants.

As pointed out in Kamala Harris’s X account, cited by Hugh Canon in his Newsweek article, this means that such a security clearance could be granted, effective immediately, to Vladimir Putin if Trump so directs.

Now, it is highly unlikely that Trump would make such a transparent move. It is not unlikely, however, that such a clearance could be granted to a lower-ranking official who has not been vetted who would make such information available to Putin’s intelligence services.

Trump asserts that he has the authority to override requirements for the granting of security clearances set forth in the laws of the United States.

Is this true?

The issue may not have been litigated before. It is time to litigate it now.

Trump argues further that he has the authority under the Constitution to decide who gets a security clearance, and to override existing laws in order tondo so.

Again, is this true?

Groups interested in safeguarding U.S. national security should be in court tonight seeking a Temporary Restraining Order to prevent Trump from giving away the crown jewels of our intelligence services while Washington and journalists sleep.

Opening our secret intelligence to unvetted officials, solely at the discretion of a president viewed by many experts as a “Russian asset”, may constitute an instance of “high crimes and misdemeanors” for which President Trump should be impeached.

***

James Rowles is a former Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and professor of international law at other universities.

He studied the history of Nazi Germany at Stanford, and has studied and worked on human rights, judicial reform, and access to justice projects in many countries in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and in Afghanistan and Russia. At Harvard Law School, he taught a course on “Law, Human Rights, and the Struggle for Democracy in Latin America”.

At the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the OAS, he worked on human rights cases involving forced disappearances, executions, and torture in a number of authoritarian countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Recent Books by the Author

James P. Rowles, The Rape of American Democracy: Republican Actions and Democratic Failures, 2016-2021 (2024). Available on Amazon, and from IngramSpark by clicking on a link here.

James P. Rowles, Don’t Be Stupid. Pay Attention, Damn It! Advice for Undecided Voters and Voters Leaning Toward Trump (2024). Available on Amazon,and from IngramSpark by clicking on a link here.

***

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