Sally Yates Rails Against Kushner's Security Clearance: We Have 'Lost Our Ability to Be Shocked'
by Pardes Seleh | Mar 1st, 2019, 10:20 am
Former United States Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates decried Jared Kushner‘s security clearance Friday morning as a risk to some of the country’s “most sensitive national security information,” lamenting the lax ability for members of the current administration to receive clearance.
Link to tweet
Four sources for the Times had alleged Trump ordered former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly to give Kushner a top-secret security clearance despite concerns from intelligence and senior administration officials. The story is now trending online, along with the hashtag #FireKushner.
Yates, a holdover from the Obama Administration, was fired by Trump ten days after he came into office, over disputes regarding his travel ban.
https://www.mediaite.com/trump/sally-yates-rails-against-kushners-security-clearance-we-have-lost-our-ability-to-be-shocked/
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irreparable damage.
... and he had some interesting things to say about John Kelly. Cliff Sims was a communications guy who worked on Chump's campaign in 2016, and then joined the new administration after Chump's inaugural. So he worked in the White House for about 1-1/2 years including more than a year with Kelly as the WH Chief of Staff.
So Kelly had his own wily ways of asserting authority and blocking people he didn't like. One of the sure ways to get people fired (or not hired) was to deny them a security clearance whether it was deserved or not. When it suited him, Kelly gave provisional clearances to friends even though they didn't qualify for them. One obvious example was Rob Porter, whom Kelly brought in and then ignored the red flags on Porter's routine background checks. Porter was later forced to resign when it got reported in the papers that he had abused 2 ex-wives and a former girlfriend.
As for Jared Kushner, Kelly resented that he and Ivanka had "walk-in" privileges to the Oval Office whenever they wanted. Kelly had tried to strictly control access but he couldn't get around family. So the next best thing was to deny Jared the top security clearance which did slow him down for a while. No high-security meetings, no eyes-only emails, and Chump wasn't supposed to discuss such matters with him either. Suddenly Jared wasn't there to read all the President's stuff and condense it down for him. For all the other personnel issues, Chump deferred to Kelly and refrained from getting involved. But he absolutely insisted that Kelly make sure Jared got his high-security clearance, and that was one of very few times he gave John Kelly a direct order.
