Former Vice President Kamala Harris, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a number of Biden administration officials, and other well-known Democrats had their security clearances revoked by President Trump on Friday night.
The action follows last month’s announcement by Mr. Trump that he was rescinding former President Joe Biden’s security clearance. The whole Biden family’s security clearances were also being revoked, the president stated in a letter on Friday.
Former White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, former Rep. Elizabeth Cheney, former White House Russia expert Fiona Hill, former Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, former U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic Norman Eisen, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, New York Attorney General Letita James, Manhattan Attorney General Alvin Bragg, and lawyer Mark Zaid, who represented the whistleblower who raised concerns about Mr. Trump’s interactions with Ukraine during his first term in office, also lost their access to classified material and their security clearances.
As part of a purging of dozens of clearances for current and past officials, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard had previously canceled the clearances of some of those identified, including Bragg and James, earlier this month.
The letter from Friday pertains to “receipt of classified briefings, such as the President’s Daily Brief, and access to classified information held by any member of the Intelligence Community by virtue of the named individuals’ previous tenure in the Congress.”
The president has removed the clearances of many former officials who he says “weaponized” the law or the intelligence community against him since he took office in January.
Cheney and Kinzinger were part of the House select committee that looked into the Capitol uprising on January 6. Mr. Trump was convicted of 34 state charges of falsifying company records as a consequence of Bragg’s involvement in the New York “hush money” criminal case.
James accused Mr. Trump and the Trump company of extensive fraud and filed a lawsuit against them. After a protracted trial, a judge found Mr. Trump and his former business liable for $453 million.
Retired Gen. Mark Milley, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Trump and Biden administrations, was among those whose clearances had previously been revoked. He had a public falling out during the last months of Mr. Trump’s first term over the June 2020 photo op in front of St. John’s Church after federal officers removed social justice protesters from Lafayette Park to allow Mr. Trump to walk from the White House to the church.
Mr. Trump also took issue with Milley’s disclosure that he had spoken with Chinese General Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army on the phone twice, on October 30, 2020, and January 8, 2021, two days after the Capitol uprising, to reassure him that the United States was stable and would not attack China.
Hundreds of former intelligence officers signed a statement in 2020 alleging that emails discovered on a laptop belonging to Biden’s son, Hunter, had the characteristics of a Russian misinformation effort. On the day of his inauguration, Mr. Trump revoked their clearances.
Because of a book he wrote on his stint as national security advisor during Mr. Trump’s first term, John Bolton also lost his clearance.
Bolton was charged by the president with disclosing private information, and the book’s release “created a grave risk that classified material was publicly exposed.”