BY HAVING A “TOP SECRET” SECURITY CLEARANCE, KUSHNER STILL CANNOT ACCESS THE MOST SECRET INFO

…President Trump & son-in-law, Jared Kushner

The most highly classified intelligence is known as: “Sensitive, Compartmented Information, or SCI.

Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and President Trump, have all lied that the president had nothing to do with Jared’s Top-Secret Security clearance.  But early last year, President Trump directed his then-chief of staff, John Kelly, to give his son-in-law Jared Kushner a Top-Secret security clearance.  This was a call that made Kelly so uncomfortable, he documented the request in writing.  This is according to current and former administration officials.

After Kushner, a senior White House adviser, and wife, Ivanka, pressured the president to grant Kushner the long-delayed clearance, Trump instructed Kelly to fix the problem.  As usual, this is according to a person familiar with Kelly’s account, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.  It’s always the same, no one at the White House has the guts to speak the truth without the anonymity.  I guess you can’t blame them for wanting to keep their jobs, but it’s just more proof of how chaotic the White House is operating.

Kelly had made it clear to his colleagues that the decision to give Kushner Top-Secret clearance was against the career intelligence officials, as well as the former White House Counsel, Don McGahn.  Kelly had decided to make sure it was recorded as a Trump instruction in an internal memo.  This is again from two White House associates who had read the memo about the then-chief-of-staff’s concerns.

It is unclear how Kelly was able to follow Trump’s directive. But by May of 2018, Kushner had been granted a permanent security clearance to view Top-Secret material.   This was a move that followed months of concern inside the White House about his inability to secure such access.  Kushner was required to make multiple modifications to the forms required for obtaining a Top Secret clearance.

Kushner’s own attorney publicly described the process as one that had gone through normal channels.  But that was a description that Kelly did not view as being accurate.

The former chief-of-staff, who left the administration at the beginning of this year, did not respond to a request for comment. 

Trump’s push to get Kushner clearance, and the chief-of-staff’s concerns about it, was first reported by the New York Times, which also reported that then-White House Counsel Don McGahn had concerns about Kushner’s clearance.

As usual, when asked, the White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders declined to weigh in by saying: “We don’t comment on security clearances.” 

Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Kushner’s lawyer, said in a statement that, “In 2018, White House and security clearance officials affirmed that Mr. Kushner’s security clearance was handled in the regular process with no pressure from anyone.”

Congressional Democrats have said that they plan to aggressively scrutinize the role Trump played in securing Kushner’s clearance.  Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), and chairman of the House Oversight Committee, noted that his committee has already launched an investigation into the White House security clearance process.  But the committee has yet to receive a response to its request for documents.

“The Committee expects full compliance with its requests as soon as possible, or it may become necessary to consider alternative means to compel compliance,” Cummings said in a statement.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) said in a statement late Thursday that his panel, as well as the House Oversight Committee, will continue in their investigation of the White House’ security clearance process.

“The revelation that President Trump personally intervened to overrule White House security officials and the Intelligence Community to grant a Top Secret security clearance to his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is the latest indicator of the President’s utter disregard for our national security and for the men and women who sacrifice so much every day to keep us safe,” Schiff said. “There is no nepotism exception for background investigations.”

Both Trump and his daughter, Ivanka, have publicly denied the president was involved in securing a clearance for Kushner. The president told the New York Times in an interview that he did not direct Kelly or similar officials to grant a clearance for his son-in-law, and Ivanka Trump told ABC News that her father was not involved in the process. 

In the first year of the administration, Kushner had an interim security clearance that allowed him to view both top-secret and sensitive information.  With that designation, he had been able to attend classified briefings, get access to the president’s daily intelligence report and issue requests for information to the intelligence community.  But there was widespread concern in the White House about his lack of a permanent clearance.

In February 2018, John Kelly limited the access of all employees with interim security clearances to just Top-­Secret information in the wake of abuse allegations against a top aide.  That new policy caused Kushner’s clearance to be downgraded from “Top Secret/SCI” level to the “Secret” level.  This is a far lower level of access to classified information.

At the time, Trump said he would defer the question of Kushner’s access to his chief-of-staff. 

“I will let General Kelly make that decision, and he’s going to do what’s right for the country,” the president said during a news conference. “And I have no doubt that he will make the right decision.”

However, Kushner has not received a clearance to see the most highly classified intelligence the government produces, known as “sensitive, compartmented information, or SCI”, The Washington Post has report.

That meant that Kushner was effectively barred from seeing information gleaned from human spies or from the government’s vast signals intelligence apparatus.  It’s that kind of intelligence that forms the basis of the president’s daily intelligence briefing and that is customarily given to senior policymakers and Cabinet officials.  (Since Trump rarely reads the daily report, Jared would before, read it and would then tell Trump what’s in the report.  He can no longer do that for the president.)

Fortunately, even with Jared now having that Top Secret clearance, he still has not received that higher level of the SCI access.

According to security experts, Kushner’s lack of SCI access suggests that the CIA did not signed off on his receiving that level of intelligence.  Jared had struggled to obtain even his Top-Secret clearance, in part because of his contacts with certain foreign government officials.

Some foreign officials, whose communications were intercepted by the US intelligence, these foreign officials privately discussed amongst themselves how they could manipulate Kushner, by taking advantage of his complex business arrangements as well as the financial difficulties he has had, and his lack of foreign-policy experience.  This is according to current and former US officials who have written intelligence reports on the matter.  Of course, these officials also spoke to The Post on the condition of anonymity.

Kushner’s foreign entanglements continue to cause anxiety among US intelligence officials who are ultimately responsible for deciding whether he should have that SCI clearance, that extremely important step above Top Secret.. 

The decision to grant an SCI clearance is usually made by each of the agencies that generated the information. The CIA, for example, grants access to human intelligence gathered from agents and operatives. The NSA could grant a cleared SCI individual to the access to intercepted communications and intelligence generated by spying on foreign computer networks.  So far, Jared has not been given that level of clearance from any US agency.

The reality is that with someone that can be influenced by another country’s investments into their private businesses, they should not be given that level of SCI access to highly sensitive information.

Copyright G. Ater 2019