Some points to consider about the White House decision to look at revoking security clearances of former officials. washingtonpost.com/politics/rand-…
First, it’s not clear that many of these six former officials are engaged in money-making work that requires a clearance. Two of them, Comey and McCabe, don’t even have active clearance that gives them access to classified information. They were pulled when they got fired.
Two, how exactly the president could revoke or suspend a clearance isn’t well understood, because it hasn’t happened. This is a helpful guide to what Trump might do. lawfareblog.com/can-president-…
3.) What does the WH mean that these former officials have “monetized” their clearance? Do they mean they have private sector jobs that require clearance? So do hundreds of thousands of people. Pull their clearances and the government would grind to a halt.
4.) Is the WH angry that these former officials go on TV and write books and op-eds and tweets criticizing the president? Undoubtedly. But they don’t need security clearance to do that.
5.) Perhaps most important to the issues here, there WH has not put forward any evidence to show that these former officials improperly disclosed classified information or did something to violate the terms of their clearance. Now, maybe that’s forthcoming.
But absent that evidence, it’s not clear that agency officials (CIA, for example) who may still hold these peoples’ clearance would agree to revoke them. It’s been 1,000 times, but we’re in uncharted territory.
And given the facts as we know them now, it’s hard to see the WH action as something other than punitive, taken because these former officials criticized the president.
