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The FBI has put to bed a controversy whipped up by liberal critics of Attorney General Jeff Sessions over his contacts with foreign officials including Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 presidential campaign. An FBI email released through the Freedom of Information Act said that Sessions had no obligation to reveal any contacts with foreign officials unless he “developed personal relationships” with them. AD 00:11 / 00:15 Al Franken should skip the ethics probe and resign over sexual misconduct Watch Full Screen The bottom line: His two contacts with Kislyak in 2016 did not have to be revealed to...

Secretary of State John Kerry said he will meet with Chinese leaders next week for the annual U.S.-China Economic and Security Dialogue and then hold “a dinner at Mount Vernon” for them. Kerry will be hosting the Chinese at Mount Vernon, the Virginia estate of George Washington, less than three weeks after the Office of Personnel Management announced that the personnel files of some four million current and former federal employees had been hacked, reportedly by the Chinese. The secretary of State mentioned his upcoming meetings and dinner with the Chinese at Mount Vernon specifically in response to a question...

In less than two weeks, the Office of Personnel Management is expected to launch the new background investigation service to help fix the mess created by a series of incidents ranging from a lack of contractor oversight to the massive data breach affecting 21.5 million current and former federal employees. Officials promise the National Background Investigations Bureau (NBIB) will be a much different organization than its predecessor, the Federal Investigative Services. “It will have a politically appointed director, will be headquartered in D.C. and be a full member of the Performance Accountability Council, so it aligns with customers for increased...

The White House dismissed six aides on Thursday after the staffers failed FBI background checks. Some of the aides were physically "walked out of the building by security" a day earlier. Those affected had failed the SF86, a Questionnaire for National Security Positions used to determine whether a government employee is eligible for a security clearance. The test takes into consideration a person's credit score, substance use and various personal subjects. Caroline Wiles was among the six escorted off the property. Wiles worked as Trump's scheduling director and is the daughter of Susan Wiles, who managed Trump's Florida campaign. Wiles...

The Office of Personnel Management has decided to take a step back in an attempt to move forward after hackers breached files containing sensitive data on millions of current and former federal employees, but some stakeholders are not fully on board with the plan. The agency sent an advisory last week to federal offices instructing them to temporarily collect paper copies of employees’ background investigation forms, rather than processing them electronically. OPM reached that decision after it shut down e-QIP, the Web tool that tracks employee background investigations, due to vulnerabilities that led to a breach of the personal information...

Hackers have breached a database containing a wealth of sensitive information from federal employees’ security background checks, the Obama administration said Friday — news that experts say could deal a devastating blow to U.S. intelligence gathering. The revelations came just a week after officials disclosed a previous massive cyber intrusion into the same federal personnel office, compromising records of more than 4 million current and past employees in a breach that administration officials have privately blamed on Chinese hackers. The stolen records in the hack disclosed Friday included data on intelligence and military personnel, The Associated Press reported. A senior...

Hi: I was wondering if anyone can help me out. It seems most of the jobs in Bureau of Land Management (DOI) require: background check/security clearance. Some of them require SF-86 which includes travel history. I was born in Hong Kong (left young for Canada to escape communism), then came to US and ended up being citizen here. I still have citizenship status in HK and Canada (sorry Freepers, don't get mad at me). I traveled alot back to Canada, up to 5 times per year on very short trips (long weekend to 1-week trips), spending up to 1 month...