We are getting reports from press and from a wide variety of sources that indicate that—that
people are—folks are suggesting that we are conducting foreign relations with folks
with security clearances via WhatsApp.
I mean, every day that we go on without getting to the bottom of this matter is a day that
we are putting hundreds, if not potentially thousands of Americans, at risk.
I mean, really, what’s next—putting nuclear codes in Instagram DMs?
This is ridiculous!
We need to get to the bottom of this.
And in order to do that we have to issue subpoenas because people in this administration are
not cooperating.
And every day that there is an insecure line of communication that could be leaked, that
could be hacked, that could be screenshotted, without proper channels is a day that we are
putting our national security at risk.
It doesn’t matter the party, when something is going wrong in government, when there is
overreach, when there is an abuse or a misconduct of process, we have an obligation to seek
and investigate it out.
It is so serious, especially as a New Yorker—especially as anyone who cares about the security of
what happens on American soil.
Every day that we have an insecure line of communication, we have a responsibility to
investigate it and to make sure that we get to the bottom of it.
This is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Democratic-led Oversight Committee taking action after a
whistle-blower, Tricia Newbold, told the committee that senior Trump administration officials
granted security clearances to at least 25 people whose applications had been denied
because they could put national security at risk.
Of the 25 individuals, 2 are current senior White House officials, and while they’re
not named, one of the officials does appear to be Jared Kushner.
According to an NBC News report from January, the then-head of the personnel security division
was Carl Kline, who overruled a decision by the department’s security officials not
to grant Kushner a security clearance.
And then the New York Times reported that Trump ordered his former Chief of Staff, John
Kelly, to grant the clearance despite Trump’s previous claims that he played no role in
doing so.
But it gets worse.
Because of the White House’s decision to unilaterally have Jared Kushner broker peace
in the Middle East, he needed an even higher security designation granting him access to
what’s known as “sensitive compartmented information,” or SCI, which makes up the
government’s most sensitive secrets.
When his file went to the CIA, who’s in charge in granting this designation, they
denied the request, with one official calling the White House’s security division asking
how Kushner even got a top-secret clearance, much less the higher security access he was
seeking.
And when Kushner himself was asked about this, he shrugged it off, pointing to a Mueller
report that… no one… has seen yet.
The left is going crazy about the security clearance issue.
And a whistle blower from the White House has now given a private interview on Capitol
Hill to Democrats.
And she says that 25 individuals were able to leapfrog over the careers peoples’ concerns
about security clearances and they received security clearances improperly.
What’s your reaction to that?
Well I can’t comment for the White House’s process but what I can say is that over the
last 2 years that I’ve been here, I’ve been accused of all different types of things,
and all of those things have turned out to be false.
We’ve had a lot of crazy accusations, like that we colluded with Russia.
I’ve complied with all the different investigations, whether it be the Senate, the House, the Special
Counsel, I sat for nearly 20 hours of interviews with them.
When I came to Washington, I had a very successful business career.
I had extensive holdings.
I disclosed all my holding to the Office of Government Ethics.
And what I did with that is they told me what to divest, what to keep, what rules to follow.
And despite Laura Ingraham’s hard-hitting interview strategy of scoffing at career national
security officials who raised serious concerns over granting Kushner a security clearance,
the fact is that his FBI background check identified questions about his family's business,
his foreign contacts, his foreign travel and meetings he had during
the campaign.
So while Trump and Republicans line up to defend Jared Kushner because nepotism is fine
as long as it’s on the right, they’re willfully disregarding the fact that there
are reasons – good reason – for denying a security clearance.
If Kushner, or any of the other more than 2 dozen officials who were granted ill-gotten
security clearances, has something in his background that could make him vulnerable
to blackmail, or foreign entanglements or debts owed, then we clearly wouldn’t want
that person to have the nation’s most closely guarded secrets.
This shouldn’t be a partisan issue.
But of course, like everything else that the GOP has deemed acceptable in their blind deference
to this administration, it is.
Which is why after 2 years of free reign at the hands of some spineless Republicans in
Congress, they’re really not looking forward to what this new Congress’s oversight is
about to uncover.