Washington In the most recent act of retaliation against federal government intelligence community employees, the Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it was rescinding the security clearances of 37 national security officers, both current and retired.
A note from the National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard charges the targeted individuals with failing to protect classified information, violating professional analytic tradecraft standards, politicizing or weaponizing intelligence to further personal or partisan objectives, and engaging in other unidentified harmful behavior.
The charges were not supported by any evidence in the document.
After holding both high-level national security posts and lower-level, less visible positions, several of the targeted officials departed the government years ago.
Some worked on issues that have long angered Trump, such as the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia used its influence to sway the 2016 presidential election. Additionally, a number of them expressed their disapproval of Trump by signing a critical letter in 2019 that was made public on social media last month by Laura Loomer, a close Trump ally and right-wing provocateur.
The move reflects the president’s ongoing mistrust of professional intelligence personnel he has long viewed as acting against his interests and is part of a larger Trump administration effort to use the power of government against alleged enemies.
Revocation of clearances has become the administration’s go-to method, a move that critics say runs the risk of silencing dissenting opinions from a national security community that is used to considering a variety of perspectives before making a decision.
According to a statement released by national security attorney Mark Zaid, whose own clearance was revoked by the Trump administration, “these are illegal and unconstitutional decisions that diverge from well-established, decades-old laws and policies that sought to protect against just this type of action.”
He said the administration’s accusations that these people weaponized or politicized intelligence were hypocritical.
On Tuesday, Gabbard defended the action, claiming that Trump had ordered it.
She wrote on X that having a security clearance is a luxury rather than a right. The sacred trust that members of the Intelligence Community pledged to preserve has been violated by those who violate their oath to the Constitution and prioritize their personal interests over those of the American people.
The suspension of the security clearance coincides with a larger initiative by Gabbard and other Trump administration officials to reexamine the intelligence community’s assessment of Russian election meddling, which includes declassifying a number of old documents intended to raise questions about the validity of its conclusions.
Russia meddled in the 2016 election in a wide-ranging manner, including by hacking and leaking Democratic emails and launching a social media campaign to sow division and change public opinion, according to the findings of several government investigations.
However, Trump has consistently rejected the idea that Russian President Vladimir Putin acted in his favor, and his Justice Department has approved a grand jury probe that may expose people from the Obama administration to new scrutiny.
Security clearances are crucial for both current and former government employees whose jobs in the private sector require them to maintain access to sensitive data. Such employees may find it difficult to perform their duties if their clearances are revoked.
More than forty former intelligence officers signed a statement in 2020 claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop case had the characteristics of a Russian information operation, and Trump announced on his first day in office that he would cancel their security credentials.
Additionally, he canceled the clearances of former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris. Federal judges rejected his attempts to do the same for attorneys at several well-known law firms.
Members of Biden’s national security team were among those targeted in the most recent action. According to two former government officials who were on the list, many people only found out about the Gabbard action through press reports on Tuesday. As they consider filing a lawsuit, both spoke on condition of anonymity.
