2/12/2018

CONFLICT OF INTERESTS/ETHICS/NATIONAL SECURITY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP FAMILY: “One week after the 2016 election, President-elect Donald J. Trump tweeted that he was ‘not trying to get *top level security clearance* for my children,’ calling such claims ‘a typically false news story.’ But he said nothing at the time about his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Nearly 15 months later, Mr. Kushner, now a senior White House adviser with a broad foreign policy portfolio that requires access to some of the intelligence community’s most closely guarded secrets, still has not succeeded in securing a permanent security clearance. The delay has left him operating on an interim status that allows him access to classified material while the F.B.I. continues working on his full background investigation.
Mr. Kushner’s status was similar to the status of others in the White House, including Rob Porter, the staff secretary who resigned last week after his two former wives alleged that he physically and emotionally abused them during their marriages.
People familiar with the security clearance process in Mr. Trump’s White House said it was widely acknowledged among senior aides that raising questions about unresolved vetting issues in a staff member’s background would implicitly reflect on Mr. Kushner’s status, as well — a situation made more awkward because Mr. Kushner is married to the president’s daughter Ivanka…
Questions about the security clearance process at the White House have become more urgent after the scandal surrounding Mr. Porter and the still-unanswered questions about when the president’s aides knew about the abuse allegations against him. On Monday, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, again refused to provide a detailed explanation…
Ms. Sanders referred questions about the security clearance process — and why Mr. Porter was allowed to continue working at the White House for so long despite the abuse accusations — to the F.B.I. and the intelligence agencies, saying they are the ones that handle the background checks and the granting of permission to handle classified information… The F.B.I. had no comment on Monday.”

-Michael D. Shear and Matthew Rosenberg, “Accusations Against Aide Renew Attention on White House Security Clearances,” The New York Times online, Feb. 12, 2018