Still plenty of Obama holdovers and career (Democrat) civil servants involved in the clearance adjudication process, and they’re playing politics, hard and fast. The same people who looked the other way when Ben Rhodes was denied even an interim clearance are rejecting Trump appointees over anything they can find.
Here’s an example of the politicization that has occurred since the earliest days of Trump’s administration. When Mike Flynn was trying to build his team as National Security Adviser, he hired a career intel civilian (from the Pentagon) and a retired Marine Corps two-star as top deputies. Both men had held TS/SCI clearances for years, with no issues. Should have been a simple matter of transferring their files to the SSO that serves the White House and “reading them into” any additional special access programs that might be required.
But almost as soon as their appointments were announced, both individual had their clearances suspended for unspecified reasons. And they remained in limbo until they asked their names be removed from consideration. At that point, they got their clearances back.
Trump made major mistakes by (a) not firing as many Obama appointees as possible on Day One, and (b) not having a full roster of replacements ready at the same time.
Personnel IS policy.
“Trump made major mistakes by (a) not firing as many Obama appointees as possible on Day One, and (b) not having a full roster of replacements ready at the same time.”
Can President Trump fire them now? If he could do it on Day One, seems like he could do it now,,yes?
And, surely, loyal staff members could get a roster of replacements pretty quickly.