Letter to the Hon. Trey Gowdy, Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Hon. Elijah Cummings, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform - Congressmen Raja Krishnamoorthi And Mark DeSaulnier Call On Oversight Committee To Hold Hearings On Problems With White House Security Clearance Process
Letter
Dear Chairman Gowdy and Ranking Member Cummings:
Since the beginning of the Trump administration, multiple reports have shed light on the ongoing problem of the White House senior staff's inability to obtain full security clearances. Most recently, Senior Advisor to the President Jared Kushner's security clearance was downgraded from an interim Top Secret/SCI to an interim Secret-level security clearance due to concerns over his financial ties and failure to thoroughly disclose his foreign contacts.
On February 15th, the Chairman sent a letter to the White House Chief of Staff requesting more information concerning the process by which Executive Branch staff interim security clearances are investigated and adjudicated, as well as a list of employees in the Executive Office of the President for whom a security clearance has either been pending or adjudicated since January 2017. While the White House did respond to this request, the information provided to the Committee provided no insight into the White House's process of investigating and adjudicating interim security clearances.
Despite these reports and the Chairman's request, no substantive information has been provided and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has not held a single hearing to investigate the White House senior staff's continued problems with security clearances
With this in mind, we urge you to convene Committee hearings that address the following issues:
The harm that was caused by having senior staff working for over a year without the full clearances necessary to carry out their duties
The full extent of this problem throughout the executive branch
We thank you for your attention to this matter and look forward to working with you as we fulfill our mandate to provide necessary oversight across the federal government.
Sincerely,
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