National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard said on Tuesday Memorandum It was posted on X that the Trump administration is canceling the security approval of 37 current and former National Security Officers.
He accused them of being engaged in “politicization or weapons of weapons” to carry forward personal or biased targets, failed to protect classified information, “professional analytical tradecraft standards follow” and failed to follow other “harmful” conduct, which he did not describe in the memo.
Memo did not provide any evidence to support the allegations.
Many of the officers who were targeted left the government years ago after serving senior national security positions and lower-profile roles.
Sam Vinograd, who was the Assistant Secretary of Counterterabing, is among the 37 former officers in the Homeland Security Department, the prevention of danger and law enforcement policy. He is also a national security contributor for CBS News. He has not yet responded to Gabard’s memo.
Some officials worked on cases that have long influenced President Trump, such as the intelligence community, which Russia intervened 2016 presidential election From his side. And many people showed their concerns about Mr. Trump by signing an important letter in 2019, which was shut down the right -wing provocator and Trump Elli Laura Lumor last month.
This action reflects the ongoing disbelief about Mr. Trump’s career intelligence officials, which he considers as working against his interests. Relations of approval are a strategy that the administration has used earlier – It has canceled Former President Joe Biden, former Vice President Kamla Harris, former State Secretary Hillary Clinton and many others approved. Critics say that before preparing an assessment, an intelligence from an intelligence community is accustomed to drawing on a border of an intelligence community approach to cool down disagreement. In the first term of Mr. Trump, he Dismissed Approval of former CIA director John Brainon.
A national security lawyer, which the Trump administration said in a statement, “These are illegal and unconstitutional decisions that are well settled, distracted by decades -old laws and policies, seeking to save from this type of action,” a national security lawyer, whose own approval has been rejected by the Trump administration, said in a statement.
He called it hypocrites for the administration that “these persons claimed political or arms intelligence.”
Gabbard on Tuesday demanded to protect the move, which he said that was directed by Mr. Trump.
“To be assigned with a safety approval is a privilege, not an right,” he has written on X. “People of the intelligence community who take their oath for the constitution and put their own interests in front of the American people have broken the sacred belief that they promised to maintain.”
In recent weeks, Gabard And other officials of the Trump administration have re -included intelligence community evaluation published on Russian election intervention in 2017, including Unworthy A series of years old documents meant to doubt the validity of its findings.
Many government investigations have come to the same conclusion that Russia intervened in fashion widely in the 2016 election, including the hack-and-leaked operation of Democratic email and a social media campaign, which aims to extinguish the disorder and increase public opinion.
But Mr. Trump has long opposed the assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin has intervened in his favor, and his Department of Justice has authorized the Department of Justice. Grand jury check This can conduct a fresh investigation for Obama-era officials.
Safety approval is important not only for the current government employees but for former employees, whose private-field jobs require them to maintain access to sensitive information. Clearing clearance from such employees can make it difficult for them to do their work, although it is not clear how many of the former authorities are still one or one.
On the first day of his office, Mr. Trump said he would cancel the security approval of more than four dozen former intelligence officers, who signed a 2020 letter, saying that Hunter Biden Laptop saga bore the identity of “Russian Information Operations”.
Mr. Trump has attempted to cancel security approval for lawyers in several major law firms, but was reprimanded by federal judges.
Some of the people who were targeted in the latest action were part of Biden’s national security team. Many people came to know about Gabbard action from news reports on Tuesday, two former government officials who were in the list, told The Associated Press. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity because they consider whether to take legal action.
Contributed to this report.
