The New York Times, relying on three sources close to the matter, reported Sunday that a memo now circulating among Republican Donald Trump’s advisers recommends that if he’s elected next week, he bypass official background checks and grant security clearances to a wide swath of his appointees. Alternatively, the proposal suggests Trump do an end around the FBI and hire private investigative firms to conduct background inquiries. The people behind this idea, according to the Times, include Boris Epshteyn, a trusted legal adviser. It's not clear whether Trump has seen the reported proposal, but if it's authentic, then its mere existence should worry Americans, even as it excites our foreign adversaries.
It's not clear whether Trump has seen the reported proposal, but if it's authentic, then its mere existence should worry Americans.
Our national security guardrails could vaporize if Trump wins. It’s unlikely that he would have any officials in his administration capable of telling him no. In addition to that, his advisers, some of whom would have difficulty obtaining security clearances from the government, are reportedly hatching a plot that would let Trump grant security clearances to people who may not be qualified to hold them.
Bypassing government background checks would be a direct contravention of established protocol that was updated in a White House and Justice Department document last year. That document tasks the FBI with conducting the background checks and investigations for White House appointees and employees and others who will perform services for, or be recognized with awards by, the president.
There’s a reason the FBI is given that job. First, the bureau is not only a part of the Justice Department; it is also a member of the U.S. intelligence community. That means the FBI has the access, and importantly the clearances and authorities, to conduct meaningful and comprehensive fact-finding. If needed, the FBI can subpoena records, make official requests of foreign governments, conduct highly specialized polygraphs and use the panoply of tools in its toolkit to help a presidential administration resolve a question about an appointee.
A private entity, whose fee could be contingent upon the outcome of its findings, would likely have no such access or authorities, and it would be blind to the kind of classified intelligence and ongoing criminal or national security investigations related to appointees or job candidates. A private firm would have little incentive to seek and find derogatory information that could disqualify someone from holding a clearance if it fears Trump would react negatively to such findings.
A sham vetting process could allow people who pose threats to our country’s security to regularly access secret or top-secret intelligence. Given that this dangerous proposal wouldn’t serve our national security and that it is fraught with the potential for partisan abuse and fraud, what’s behind it? Self-interest. Trump’s cohort, the kind of people he’s surrounded by and would likely choose for an administration, would face serious obstacles in getting the necessary national security clearances. Concerns over criminal records, honesty, foreign influence, character, reputation, finances, loyalty to the U.S. and their known associates would disqualify many Trump favorites.
Epshteyn was indicted in June in Arizona on election interference charges related to the fake electors scheme. He pleaded not guilty. Also among the 18 people charged in Arizona are Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani and Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows. Giuliani and Meadows are also similarly charged in the Fulton County, Georgia, RICO case. In my experience as a former head of counterintelligence for the FBI who frequently weighed in on background inquiry findings for White House nominees, Epshteyn, Giuliani and Meadows would face uphill battles being granted security clearances. And they’re not the only similarly situated Trump loyalists whom he might want to serve in his next term.
Trump says that if he wins, he’ll bring back his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contact with the Russian government but was later pardoned by Trump. Flynn would not likely be recommended to hold a security clearance again. Steve Bannon, a former Trump political strategist, also has his own security issues. Bannon was released from federal prison Tuesday after serving four months for contempt of Congress in relation to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection. Peter Navarro, a former Trump economic adviser, completed his prison term in July after refusing to comply with Congress. Such convictions wouldn’t normally result in a White House’s granting a security clearance.
Trump said in May that Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas, is “a very talented guy” and that he’d consider appointing him as attorney general. Paxton was impeached, then acquitted, by the Texas Legislature over allegations of bribery and corruption. Court documents suggest the FBI is investigating Paxton. None of that is a good look for someone who would need a wide array of security clearances to be made the nation’s top law enforcement officer.
Trump says that if he wins, he’ll bring back his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.
Walt Nauta, the Navy valet known to fetch some proportion of the dozen Diet Cokes Trump would drink every day, was escorted from the White House by the Navy after allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct that included revenge porn arose. Later hired by Trump as a civilian personal aide, Nauta was charged for what a grand jury said was his role in mishandling classified documents Trump kept at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. Special counsel Jack Smith is appealing U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision to dismiss that case. Regardless of the outcome, Nauta is reportedly seen in a security camera video moving boxes of classified documents in an apparent attempt to hide them from investigators. Such evidence, independent of any conviction, would weigh heavily against Nauta’s getting the security clearance needed should Trump want him to sling soda again in the White House.
Trump cares more about loyalty to him than loyalty to the nation’s security. We’ve already learned how he restricted the background re-investigation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. According to a report by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Trump handcuffed the FBI by dictating and limiting the interviews the agency could conduct to resolve sexual misconduct allegations.
When Trump wanted his son-in-law Jared Kushner to serve in the White House, career government security clearance adjudicators raised concerns over Kushner’s business, foreign entanglements and contacts and denied him a high-level clearance. Yet a new security supervisor installed at the White House in 2017 overruled the experts. In fact, that same supervisor overturned clearances an unprecedented 30 times.
We have always expected the heads of intelligence community agencies to push back hard against granting clearances to people who posed threats. But if Trump places his loyalists in those guardrail positions, there will be no one to stanch the flow of classified data to Trump’s cadre of co-conspirators and no one to advise him against declassifying it to give it to them. Because those agency directors themselves might belong to the palace guard.