White House staffer tells Oversight Committee of 'grave' concerns with security clearances
By Morgan Chalfant and Olivia Beavers - 04/01/19 10:14 AM EDT
House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) on Monday released a memo detailing “grave†national security concerns raised by a White House staffer over the Trump administration’s security clearance process and announced plans to subpoena a former White House official as part of an ongoing investigation into security clearances.
The whistleblower, Tricia Newbold, participated in a transcribed interview with Democratic and Republican committee staff in late March “to expose grave and continuing failures of the White House security clearance system, including the security clearance adjudications of senior White House officials,†according to a memo detailing her accusations released by Cummings on Monday.
Among her allegations, Newbold told the committee that Trump administration officials overruled her and other career officials in more than two dozen instances in order to grant clearances to officials and contractors despite there being “disqualifying issues†in their backgrounds.
In a separate letter to White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Cummings accused the White House of “obstructing†his committee’s ongoing probe and said that the committee will vote Tuesday on whether to authorize a subpoena for Carl Kline, the White House’s former personnel security director who served there for the first two years of President Trump’s administration, to appear for a transcribed interview before the committee.
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https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/436703-white-house-staffer-tells-oversight-committee-of-grave-concerns-with
