Jared Kushner Can't Pass His Security Clearance Investigation, Officials Say

[DonViejo]

Source: Newsweek Magazine




BY CHRIS RIOTTA ON 12/1/17 AT 6:00 AM

Jared Kushner is a security risk embedded in the West Wing since he still hasn't passed a comprehensive background investigation required of anyone seeking a permanent security clearance—and no one will question the president's decision to put his son-in-law in a crucial government role, experts and officials told Newsweek.

President Donald Trump's senior adviser has been working under an interim security clearance nearly a year into the administration, as investigators continue to assess his trustworthiness and analyze his web of active foreign investments, according to two sources with knowledge of the status on Kushner's clearance. His permanent security clearance was stalled because he initially omitted 100 foreign contacts before revising his forms three times. Kushner's complicated business interests are also being considered after he repeatedly revised financial disclosure forms, but experts said the sheer volume of his ongoing ties to foreign investors are enough to deny anyone access to classified information.

"The real question is why hasn't his clearance been denied?" said Allan Edmunds, senior attorney specializing in security clearance law at Edmunds Law Firm. "Of course, the real reason it hasn’t been denied yet is because nobody has the moxie to tell the president his son-in-law can't be working in the White House, even though he shouldn't be."

The process for getting a government security clearance is well established: Adjudicators from the FBI comb through a form called an SF-86 while making an official assesment as to whether someone can be trusted with the nation's secrets. Those analysts take into account personal history, such as employment, relationships, foreign entanglements and business deals — and review revisions and mistakes would-be officials have made on their disclosure forms.



Read more: http://www.newsweek.com/jared-kushner-security-clearance-white-house-access-ivanka-donald-trump-723993

[Achilleaze]

1. d'oh

republicans didn't give a shit to start with, and they obviously don't give a shit now as long as the russian gravy train keeps making deposits to the KGOP republican TreasonWeasel vaults.

[Girard442]

2. Give Kushner the clearance and give one to Putin at the same time.

Stop the pretense that we have security anymore.

[bettyellen]

3. Ya think?

[genxlib]

4. Excessive debt is a problem for security clearance.

Being in a Billion dollar hole should be a bigger issue for Jared. That kind of pressure makes you vulnerable to all kinds of manipulation.

All of the Russian stuff is over and above that.

[underpants]

5. So THAT's why we still have that whole Middle East thing still going on

[Scarsdale]

7. Apart from this,

Kushner (and Princess Ivanka) are totally unqualified for the positions they are in. Runs in the family, Orange Ass is unqualified for ANYTHING.

[marble falls]

6. So Lindsay has lost his mind or the WH has pictures of him from the Aunt Bea look a like contest?

[left-of-center2012]

8. dot dot dot

"Kushner has updated his forms to add a slew of Russian contacts he had throughout the 2016 presidential election, following a pattern of not properly disclosing information on government records."

[IronLionZion]

9. Then fire him and keep him away from classified data

dude has way too much access. It's a national security risk.

[flt rsk]

10. Interim clearance?

In 20 years as an investigator conducting security investigations, I have never heard of an “interim” clearance. No clearance, no access.

[EarthFirst]

12. Yep. When I was a young lad in the service...

...I was denied transfer to my duty station and spent two weeks TDY as a result of my pending security clearance.

...and my clearance offered me MUCH less access to information than Kushner.

[tammywammy]

13. Really? It seems pretty common to me.

I received an interim clearance a few weeks after submitting my SF-86. The full clearance came a few weeks after that. I'm not the only one, a lot of people I work with were given interim clearances before full clearance.

[Dr_Pretorius]

14. Top secret plus?

I imagine that's what they had in mind for imbecile Kushner.

[lagomorph777]

15. You can get interim Secret, but not TS or certainly not for digraphs.

At least that's my recollection.

[jmowreader]

16. I have

Signals Intelligence work requires a Top Secret SCI clearance (SCI = Sensitive Compartmented Information, which is material so sensitive you have to restrict it to a subset of the people who have TS clearances.) It takes more than two months - the length of time you’re in basic training - to get a full TS/SCI clearance, so they split the school into two parts: one where nothing above Confidential is taught and you can go on an interim clearance, and the other which requires a final clearance and in which they tell you the good stuff.

The insane thing is, the GOP has gotten so wimpified since Trump happened, there is a guy running around the tightest SCIF in all the land with an interim clearance and unexplained contacts in Russia.

[Cold War Spook]

17. I enlisted May 31, 1963

I did not receive my Top Secret Codeword clearance until a full background check was finished. That was Oct. 1964, 15 months. I did not know that all my military records were flagged until I sent for my records and all I received was a single page document stating that do to my having access to special intelligence all training, work and posts were flagged.

[jmowreader]

19. That was two months before I was born

They issued interim clearances in the 1980s so you could attend the not-very-classified parts of training. You couldn't see anything higher than Confidential; my first MOS only really dealt with Confidential information so you could get all the way through training but you couldn't ship to a permanent party unit until you'd received your final clearance.

[flt rsk]

18. Interim for a secret is common

during the initial phase of the investigation. As the investigation proceeds something may arise that causes the investigation to be expanded. Falsification, omission, and many times just a random act of stupidity. There are actually only three types of clearance: confidential, secret, and top secret. If a top secret is given it does not automatically allow access to all TS information. A TS clearance can have additional access tacked onto it: such as need to know, special compartmentalized information (SCIF), code word, Yankee White and several others that I can’t remember at this time. One can also have a TS and more than one of the additional access caveats. One can have a TS, be read on to a program with special access and given access or a briefing and read off the same day.

Not to dis you but I don’t think that wimpified (how did you get that past spell check?) is the correct term. How about corrupt?

DISCLAIMER: The above is the best I can remember from eight years ago. There have been changes; Trump and his ilk being the biggest.

[jmowreader]

20. I like wimpified to describe the GOP

Yes, they are corrupt. They are also scared of General Secretary Trump and his fucking weapon-of-mass-destruction phone. "Oh no, Bluto! We can't say anything bad about Master Trump! He might make a nasty tweet!"

It's becoming more and more apparent as time goes by that it really was over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor.

[Bayard]

11. Isn't there some kind of time limit on this?

Or does it still fall under the tRump exception?

[Amaryllis]

21. So who has the authority to tell him he can't do this any longer?