Abuse of Security Clearances: Overruling Intelligence Officials to Grant Clearances to Kushner and Ivanka Trump, and Revoking Brennan's Clearance in Apparent Retaliation
Tier 3Documented2018-05-01 to 2019-03-06
Factual Summary
During his first term, President Donald Trump intervened in the security clearance process to grant access to family members over the objections of career intelligence and security officials, and separately revoked the security clearance of a former CIA director who had publicly criticized him. These actions raised concerns about the use of classification authority for personal and political purposes rather than national security.
### Granting Clearances Over Intelligence Objections
In May 2018, Trump ordered his chief of staff, John Kelly, to grant his son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, a top-secret security clearance. Two career White House security specialists had denied Kushner's application, and their supervisor had overruled them. The CIA had also raised concerns about Kushner. White House Counsel Don McGahn wrote an internal memo recommending that Kushner not receive a top-secret clearance, citing the concerns raised by the intelligence community. Kelly wrote a separate contemporaneous memo documenting that he had been "ordered" to give Kushner the clearance.
Kushner's background investigation had identified multiple areas of concern, including his family's complex business arrangements, his foreign contacts and meetings during the 2016 campaign, and intelligence reports that officials in at least four countries, including the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel, and Mexico, had privately discussed ways to manipulate Kushner by taking advantage of his financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience.
In March 2019, reporting revealed that Trump had also overruled security officials to grant a clearance to his daughter Ivanka Trump. Both Trump and Ivanka had previously denied that the president was involved in the clearance process. In a February 2019 interview with ABC News, Ivanka stated that the president had "zero" involvement in her security clearance or Kushner's.
### Revoking John Brennan's Clearance
On August 15, 2018, the White House announced that Trump had revoked the security clearance of John Brennan, who had served as CIA Director under President Obama from 2013 to 2017. Brennan had been one of Trump's most vocal critics in the intelligence community, regularly characterizing Trump's conduct as a threat to national security and accusing the president of being compromised by Russia.
Former senior intelligence and national security officials customarily retain their security clearances after leaving government. This practice serves a practical purpose: it allows current officials to consult with predecessors who have institutional knowledge and context. The revocation of a former CIA director's clearance for reasons other than a security violation was unprecedented.
Trump simultaneously announced that he was considering revoking the clearances of several other former officials who had been publicly critical of him, including former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director and NSA Chief Michael Hayden, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, former National Security Advisor Susan Rice, former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and former FBI officials Lisa Page and Peter Strzok.
The White House provided no evidence that Brennan had misused his security clearance. The statement accompanying the revocation cited Brennan's "erratic conduct and behavior" and his "increasingly frenzied commentary," language that described his public criticism rather than any security-related conduct. PEN America described the action as "an astounding repudiation of our constitutional system." The ACLU stated that it raised "serious First Amendment concerns." Retired Admiral William McRaven, who had commanded the operation that killed Osama bin Laden, wrote an open letter asking that his own clearance be revoked in solidarity, calling Brennan "one of the finest public servants I have ever known."
It was later reported that despite the public announcement, the White House had not completed the administrative process required to formally revoke Brennan's clearance, raising questions about whether the revocation was substantive or primarily a public messaging exercise.
Primary Sources
1. New York Times: "Trump Ordered Officials to Give Jared Kushner a Security Clearance," February 28, 2019
2. White House statement on the revocation of John Brennan's security clearance, August 15, 2018 (American Presidency Project, UC Santa Barbara)
3. John Kelly contemporaneous memo documenting the order to grant Kushner's clearance, 2018 (referenced in NYT and NBC reporting)
4. Don McGahn internal memo on Kushner clearance concerns, 2018 (referenced in NYT reporting)
Corroborating Sources
1. NBC News: "Officials rejected Jared Kushner for top secret security clearance, but were overruled," January 24, 2019
2. CNN: "Donald Trump revokes ex-CIA director John Brennan's security clearance," August 15, 2018
3. The Hill: "Kushner's security clearance was denied due to concerns of foreign influence," April 2019
4. PBS NewsHour: "John Brennan gets offers for legal action after Trump revokes his security clearance," August 2018
5. Washington Post: "Trump revoked John Brennan's security clearance. The long-term consequences may be dire," August 20, 2018
6. PEN America: "Trump Revokes Former CIA Director Brennan's Security Clearance: An Astounding Repudiation of Our Constitutional System," August 2018
Counterarguments and Context
The White House argued that the president has ultimate authority over the classification system and the granting or revocation of security clearances, which is legally accurate. Supporters contended that Kushner's clearance was appropriate given his role as a senior advisor and that the president's judgment about his own staff's trustworthiness should take precedence over the recommendations of career security officials. Regarding Brennan, the administration argued that former officials do not have a right to retain clearances and that Brennan had used his status as a former CIA director to lend credibility to partisan attacks on the president. Some commentators argued that Brennan's public commentary was itself inappropriate for a former intelligence chief and that the revocation was a reasonable response. However, the contemporaneous memos from Kelly and McGahn document that the normal security clearance process was overridden by direct presidential order in the Kushner case, and that the concerns raised by career officials and the CIA were substantive, involving potential foreign manipulation. The Brennan revocation targeted the most vocal intelligence community critic of the president, cited his public criticism rather than any security violation, and was accompanied by threats to revoke the clearances of other critics. The pattern of granting clearances to family members over professional objections while revoking clearances from critics is consistent with the use of classification authority for personal and political purposes.
Author's Note
This entry is classified as Tier 3 because the facts are documented through primary evidence, including the contemporaneous memos written by the White House chief of staff and White House counsel, the White House's own public statement on Brennan, and confirmed reporting from multiple news organizations. The president's legal authority over security clearances is not in question. What is documented here is the exercise of that authority in a manner that overrode professional national security judgments for family members and punished critics, a pattern that raises concerns about the abuse of official power even within the scope of lawful presidential discretion.