WASHINGTON (AP) The Trump administration moved Tuesday to revoke the security clearances of 37 current and former national security officials in the latest act of retribution targeting public servants in the federal government’s intelligence community.
A memo posted online by Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, accuses the targeted officials of having engaged in the “politicization or weaponization of intelligence” to advance partisan goals, as well as failure to safeguard classified information and “failure to adhere to professional analytic tradecraft standards.”
Many of the officials who were singled out left the government years ago and served in a broad range of roles, including in senior positions and lower-profile roles far from the public eye. Some have been openly critical of Trump and some worked on matters that have long provoked his ire, including the intelligence community assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election on Trump’s behalf, or have openly criticized him.
The action is part of a broader Trump administration campaign to wield the levers of government against perceived adversaries. It reflects his continued distrust of intelligence officials from prior Democratic administrations and risks chilling dissenting voices from within the national security community.
The revocation of clearances, a vital tool for intelligence professionals needing to preserve access to sensitive information, has been a go-to tactic for Trump, used to target law firms that have fallen out of favor as well as dozens of former officials who signed onto a letter saying that the Hunter Biden laptop saga bore the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.
“These are unlawful and unconstitutional decisions that deviate from well-settled, decades-old laws and policies that sought to protect against just this type of action,” Mark Zaid, a national security lawyer whose own clearance was revoked by the Trump administration, said in a statement.
Gabbard defended Tuesday’s move on social media by saying, “Being entrusted with a security clearance is a privilege, not a right.”
In the last month Gabbard has declassified a series of years-old documents meant to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the assessment on Russian election interference.
Many of those whose clearances were revoked only learned of the Gabbard action from news reports published Tuesday, according to two former government officials who were on the list. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity as they ponder whether to take legal action.
