Trump blocks clearances for 51 ex-intelligence officers who questioned Biden laptop computer story
President Trump issued 46 executive orders on his first day in office targeting national security issues, including the removal of any security clearances held by 51 former intelligence officials linked to election interference in the 2020 presidential campaign.
The order canceling access to classified material followed a campaign promise by Mr. Trump to take action against the group that included several former intelligence agency directors. The 51 officials had signed a public letter prior to the 2020 election suggesting information about Biden family corruption found on a laptop computer once owned by President Biden’s son Hunter Biden was a Russian disinformation ploy.
The laptop was later determined to be genuine by federal investigators and revealed details of questionable payments made to Biden family members from Ukrainian and Chinese companies.
An investigation by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence determined that the open letter originated with the Biden presidential campaign through Antony Blinken, who would move on to become secretary of state. Mr. Blinken worked with former Deputy CIA Director Michael J. Morell in organizing an operation to produce the letter to limit political damage, the committee said in a report.
At the time, Mr. Morell and former CIA Inspector General David B. Buckley were CIA contractors who held a security clearance. Other signers also were said by the committee to have clearances.
Former CIA Directors John Brennan, Michael Hayden and Leon Panetta were listed in the presidential order as among the officials who will lose access to secrets, along with former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
Senior intelligence officials, mainly directors and deputy directors, normally retain access to classified information after leaving office based on their past positions and potential advisory roles.
The order also stripped clearance from Mr. Trump’s former White House national security adviser, John R. Bolton. The order said Mr. Bolton’s 2020 book, a critical insider account of the first Trump administration, contained sensitive information.
The Trump administration sued Mr. Bolton in a bid to halt publication of the book. But the lawsuit was dropped by the Biden Justice Department. A federal judge in the case said the book probably contained classified information.
Most of the 51 signers were former CIA analysts. It is not known how many of the former officials still retain security clearances.
Other prominent signers include Michael Vickers, a former undersecretary of defense for intelligence; Thomas Fingar, a State Department official; and Rick Ledgett, deputy director of the National Security Agency. Doug Wise, former deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, also will lose a clearance.
The order will prevent the former officials from working as contractors as intelligence and defense contractors during the Trump administration.
Spokesmen for the CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not respond to a request for comment.
A House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence report on the laptop disinformation scandal concluded that some senior CIA officials were aware of the Biden campaign’s effort to use the former intelligence analysts to discredit the laptop story.
“The infamous Hunter Biden statement had all the hallmarks of an intelligence community influence operation,” the report stated. “But rather than carrying it out against our adversaries on foreign soil, this operation was directed at the American people and our democratic processes.”
John Gentry, a former U.S. intelligence analyst who has written extensively about the leftward politicization of the CIA, said Mr. Trump’s clearance revocation is well deserved.
“Even those who thought they were addressing a legitimate intelligence question must have realized that the letter they signed was politically significant,” Mr. Gentry said. “They knew the vaguely worded letter was designed to mislead while not actually lying, and that they were engaging in what was long, and is now again, inappropriate political activities by intelligence officers.”
Mr. Trump also issued a memorandum to the White House counsel that will bypass the often lengthy process of obtaining security clearances for senior officials. The memorandum gives the counsel authorities to grant immediate, interim clearances for access to top secret-sensitive compartmented information, the highest level of classified, to a list of key Trump administration officials for six months.
In addition to the security clearance orders, Mr. Trump signed a directive adding Cuba back to the list of designated sponsors of state terrorism. Mr. Biden ordered Cuba removed from the list six days before leaving office, just as Havana was announcing a deal with the Vatican to release a large group of political prisoners held by the regime. The action by Mr. Biden drew harsh criticism from congressional Republicans.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is Cuban American, said during his Senate nomination hearing last week that Cuba remains a state supporter of terrorism “without question.”
Cuba’s communist government is backing the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, is supporting Hamas and Hezbollah, and has strong ties to terrorist elements from Iran, Mr. Rubio said. Cuba also has “actively hosted” U.S. fugitives, including those charged with murdering American police officers, he added.
“There is zero doubt in my mind that they meet all the qualifications for being a state sponsor of terrorism,” Mr. Rubio said.
Mr. Trump also canceled a separate Biden Jan. 3 memorandum directing succession at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which has come under fire from the House Foreign Affairs Committee over charges of corruption and mismanagement at the agency. The USAGM overseas official U.S. broadcasters such as Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
The Biden directive would have made the Voice of America director the successor to current USAGM Director Amanda Bennett.
Mr. Trump chose former television reporter Kari Lake and Arizona Republican Senate candidate to head the VOA. The president has not picked a USAGM chief.
A spokesman for USAGM said Ms. Bennett and other political appointees resigned effective Monday.
