Donald Trump’s transition team is planning for all cabinet picks to receive sweeping security clearances from the president-elect and only face FBI background checks after the incoming administration takes over the bureau and its own officials are installed in key positions, according to people familiar with the matter.
The move appears to mean that Trump’s team will continue to skirt FBI vetting and may not receive classified briefings until Trump is sworn in on 20 January and unilaterally grant sweeping security clearances across the administration.
Trump’s team has regarded the FBI background check process with contempt for months, a product of their deep distrust of the bureau ever since officials turned over transition records to the Russia investigation during the first Trump presidency, the people said.
But delaying FBI vetting could also bring ancillary PR benefits for the Trump team if some political appointees run into problems during a background check, which could upend their Senate confirmation process, or if they struggle to obtain security clearances once in the White House.
The putative process for obtaining a clearance in the first Trump administration involved the White House’s personnel security office relying on an FBI background check to decide whether to grant one. The background check initially looked for untrustworthiness or red flags that could be exploited by adversaries.
If the initial checks against law enforcement databases uncovered no issues, applicants were granted an interim clearance while deeper investigations continued until it was advanced to a permanent clearance. The current Trump plan appears set to bypass that initial stage.
“The Trump-Vance transition lawyers continue to constructively engage with the Biden-Harris administration lawyers regarding all agreements contemplated by the Presidential Transition Act. We will update you once a decision is made,” Trump spokesperson Brian Hughes said in a statement.
Trump’s team have long viewed the process with suspicion, arguing that it was pointless to have government employees have the ability to recommend against granting a security clearance given Trump has the power, as president, to ultimately give clearances to whomever he likes.
Trump himself has repeatedly railed against the FBI of being part of the “deep state” conspiracy to undermine his agenda.
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During the first Trump presidency, multiple advisers faced delays and hurdles in obtaining top level clearances, including Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn and the controversial former Trump White House national security aide Sebastian Gorka.
Kushner, who played a number of roles in the first administration and was involved in drawing up a Middle East peace plan, received his clearance only after Trump personally intervened and ordered it, according to a memo written by then White House chief of staff John Kelly.
In Kushner’s case, officials in the White House personnel security office were reportedly divided about whether to grant him a top-secret clearance based on the results of his FBI background check.
In 2018, after the matter had dragged on for more than a year, the then White House counsel Don McGahn recommended to Trump that Kushner should not be granted a security clearance at that level. But Trump ordered Kelly to disregard that advice and grant it to Kushner anyway.
The precise details of the concerns about Kushner are not known, although it was reported at the time that it resulted in part from concerns at the FBI and the CIA about Kushner’s foreign and business contacts, including with Israel, Russia and the United Arab Emirates.
In 2019, a manager in the personnel security office told a House committee that 25 people, including two senior Trump White House officials, had been denied clearances by career employees for “disqualifying issues”. The New York Times reported that Kushner appeared to be among that group.
Epshteyn left the Trump White House before he received a permanent clearance. While the Trump team has said his situation was “resolved”, it remains unclear what the resolution of his background check was. Epshteyn has been floated for a senior role in the incoming administration.
Gorka failed to obtain a national security council clearance when he was part of the first Trump administration in 2017, after he was charged with carrying a gun at Ronald Reagan Washington national airport, according to the AP. Gorka was named on Friday as a deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counter-terrorism.
