"However, the 40-year-old Downey resident, who once told the undercover FBI agents that he was after "big money" as a spy, said he never intended to harm this country by his actions."
This guy committed espionage because he owed a few thousand dollars on his Visa card, but we're supposed to trust Kushner when he owes Deutsche bank about $285 million and even they think his transactions are shady?
When the FBI grants someone a security clearance they're making an estimation on whether they believe you are the type of person who is likely to repeatedly pass an integrity test. They are assessing that you are not going to betray your promise to America -- not for convenience, for love of some other country, for your family, to avoid embarrassment, or for money.
We now know due to this week's testimony of FBI director Christopher Wray that the FBI did not have confidence in the integrity of former White House staff secretary Rob Porter because that's what they reported to the White House in a preliminary report in March, then a complete report in July, and even with a follow-up report in November. And yet during that entire time, Rob Porter was handling material that was deemed highly classified -- possibly even more so than the material that myself and other cleared Northrop Grumman personnel (including Cavanagh) had been handling for years.
When finally confronted with the photograph of Porter's ex-wife with a black eye, Porter himself decided to resign, but the rest of the White House staff tried to talk him out of it and asked him to "stay and fight." They continued to defend and rationalize his continued employment and his continued access to classified material, even after the FBI had long recommended the denial of his clearance over the previous 11 months.
Both of Porter's wives had told the FBI about Porter's abuse. They have provided them pictures and also copies of a restraining order after Porter had smashed a window at the home of his second ex-wife. In November when there were apparently over 100 White House staffers with only interim clearances including Ivanka Trump, the White House personnel security office recommended that no new hires with just interim clearances should be retained, but that previous hires -- such as Rob Porter and Jared Kushner -- were exempt.
"The White House quietly imposed a ban on new interim security clearances for anyone in the executive office of the president last fall, but it let existing employees with interim clearances stay on, according to an email obtained by POLITICO.
"The Nov. 7 internal email to senior leaders at the Office of Management and Budget said the White House personnel security office had advised that it would no longer grant interim security clearances. Pending requests for interim clearances were expected to be denied, though exceptions could be requested, according to the email.
"Staffers who had already been granted interim security clearances -- like former staff secretary Rob Porter, who resigned last week amid allegations of domestic abuse -- could continue to hold them while their background investigations were finished, the email said."
The apparent reason that Porter and the 30 to 40 other persons in the White House who still only have interim clearances have apparently been allowed to stay? Jared Kushner.
"One week after the 2016 election, President-elect Donald J. Trump tweeted that he was 'not trying to get 'top level security clearance' for my children,' calling such claims 'a typically false news story.' But he said nothing at the time about his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
"Nearly 15 months later, Mr. Kushner, now a senior White House adviser with a broad foreign policy portfolio that requires access to some of the intelligence community's most closely guarded secrets, still has not succeeded in securing a permanent security clearance. The delay has left him operating on an interim status that allows him access to classified material while the F.B.I. continues working on his full background investigation.
"Mr. Kushner's status was similar to the status of others in the White House, including Rob Porter, the staff secretary who resigned last week after his two former wives alleged that he physically and emotionally abused them during their marriages.
"People familiar with the security clearance process in Mr. Trump's White House said it was widely acknowledged among senior aides that raising questions about unresolved vetting issues in a staff member's background would implicitly reflect on Mr. Kushner's status, as well -- a situation made more awkward because Mr. Kushner is married to the president's daughter Ivanka." (emphasis added)
What the White House did here was a clearly fail when faced with an integrity test.
Did they do the right thing and pull everyone with a pending interim clearance from any access to classified materials -- or did they stuff that dropped wallet in their back pocket?
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