NEW YORK (AP) — Under pressure over his handling of abuse allegations against a top aide, White House chief of staff John Kelly on Friday ordered sweeping changes in how the White House clears staff members to gain access to classified information, acknowledging the administration “must do better” in how it handles security clearances.
Kelly issued a five-page memo acknowledging White House mistakes but also put the onus on the FBI and the Justice Department to provide more timely updates on background investigations, asking any significant derogatory information about staff members be quickly flagged to the White House counsel’s office.
The issue has been in the spotlight for more than a week after it was revealed former staff secretary Rob Porter had an interim security clearance allowing him access to classified material despite allegations of domestic violence by his two ex-wives.
“Now is the time to take a hard look at the way the White House processes clearance requests,” Kelly wrote in the memo. “We should — and in the future, must — do better.”
The memo said the FBI and Justice Department had offered increased cooperation and, going forward, all background investigations of top officers “should be flagged for the FBI at the outset and then hand-delivered to the White House Counsel personally upon completion. The FBI official who delivers these files should verbally brief the White House Counsel on any information in those files they deem to be significantly derogatory.”
Dozens of White House aides have been working under interim clearances for months, according to administration officials, raising questions about the administration’s handling of the issue and whether classified information has been jeopardized.
Kelly’s plan would limit interim clearances to 180 days, with an option to extend them another 90 days if background checks had not turned up significant troubling information. The memo also recommends all Top Secret and SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information) clearances pending since last June be discontinued in a week.
That change could potentially put at risk the clearance of Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and a powerful senior adviser. Kushner’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, told the Associated Press this week Kushner has been working on an interim clearance for more than a year as his background check was being conducted.
Lowell said again Friday “there are a dozen or more people at Mr. Kushner’s level whose process is delayed” and “it is not uncommon for this process to take this long in a new administration.”
He added, “The new policy announced by General Kelly will not affect Mr. Kushner’s ability to continue to do the very important work he has been assigned by the President.” But Lowell did not respond to questions about whether Kushner’s clearance would be stripped or whether his role would require him to avoid looking at documents for which he did not possess clearance.
A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Kushner’s situation.