The White House manages to overhaul security-clearance issues

Theoretically, in the I Will Believe It When I See It segment, the Washington Post reports, "White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, under pressure over his handling of allegations of domestic abuse against a top aide, has approved an overhaul of how the White House manages security-clearance investigations, acknowledging missteps but putting the onus on the FBI and the Justice Department to now hand-deliver updates and provide more information."

This is almost comical. Trump appointee, FBI director Chris Wray, reported to Congress that the FBI notified the White House of the wife beater, Porter, in March, July, and November. Kelly himself had to know of the two battered wives for months before it all came to a head ten days ago. That means he knew months before this knowledge went public and the White House, including Kelly, made complete fools of themselves.

Kelly either knew or he is worst manager on the planet, allowing a sexual predator to work alongside the President handling Top Secret documents like the highly secretive and sensitive PDB.

Hand-deliver updates and provide more information? Now he trying to blame the FBI, because he, White House Counsel Donald McGahn, and others dropped the ball and looked like idiots doing so. They finally got around to blaming the White House security personnel department. Now, come on, that's funny.

The Trump White House is a joke. This is pure B.S.

Kelly begins the memo by stating that in the wake of the Porter scandal, “We should — and in the future, must — do better” and concedes that problems in the security-clearance process demanded attention.

Yeah, no kidding. There are 30 to 40 members of the White House staff who have been handling top secret information for months on an interim security basis. Now that is a problem and it is unique to the Trump White House.

Speaking of interim clearances, Jared Kushner has been working on such a basis for almost a year and a half, counting the transition process. “Effective one week today, discontinue any Top Secret or SCI-level interim clearances for individuals whose investigations or adjudications have been pending since June 1, 2017 or before,” the memo states as one of the White House’s new guidelines.

Yeah, right, will that include Kushner, Trump's son-in-law? The New York Times reports, "Mr. Kushner, who is spearheading the Trump administration’s efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East and is a close adviser to the president on a number of delicate topics, has been operating with an interim clearance in part because of repeated mistakes he made in filling out forms."

The Times continues, "The approval process for Mr. Kushner’s security clearance has still not been completed, and White House officials do not believe it will be resolved by the end of next week. That would seem to strip Mr. Kushner, and perhaps Ivanka Trump, his wife, of their ability to participate in meetings or handle documents with secret information. White House officials did not respond to questions about their status."

Yeah, I'll bet. Of course, they are not going to respond.

Just like all the other meaningless rhetoric coming from the Trump White House, all this will be swept under a rug by Friday. Nothing will happen, although Kelly might be looking for another job if he attempts to marginalize the President's son-in-law.

 

Regarding Kushner, his lawyer doesn't know. In a statement released Friday, Abbe D. Lowell, Mr. Kushner’s lawyer, declined to say whether his client would still have a security clearance, saying only that “the new policy announced by Mr. Kelly will not affect Mr. Kushner’s ability to continue to do the very important work he has been assigned by the president.”

It was unclear Friday night how Mr. Kushner could do his job without a security clearance, though Trump, as president, might be able to overrule Mr. Kelly’s process and grant Mr. Kushner the access that he needs.

Great, how many others will Trump clear? Why not just forget the whole thing?

Which is basically what I said in the beginning. This is just another political stunt by the Trump White House. The meaningless gesture is something Trump himself would dream up. To him, everything is appearances. Actually accomplishing anything is not important. This is all just a huge reality show to Trump and he is the star.

 

The Trump White House is so predictable and inept. I wrote the OP nine days ago, and what I said would happen is happening.

Nine days ago, I said, "In the I Will Believe It When I See It segment, the Washington Post reports, "White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, under pressure over his handling of allegations of domestic abuse against a top aide, has approved an overhaul of how the White House manages security-clearance investigations, acknowledging missteps but putting the onus on the FBI and the Justice Department to now hand-deliver updates and provide more information.'"

"This is pure B.S. Just like all the other meaningless rhetoric coming from the Trump White House, all this will be swept under a rug by Friday. Nothing will happen, although Kelly might be looking for another job if he attempts to marginalize the President's son-in-law."

Nothing was said on Kelly's new regs on Friday. Today, the White House declined to say whether any interim security clearances were revoked last week at the behest of chief of staff John Kelly.

The White House and Trump are completely mum on Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The New York Times reports, "Mr. Kushner, who is spearheading the Trump administration’s efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East and is a close adviser to the president on a number of delicate topics, has been operating with an interim clearance in part because of repeated mistakes he made in filling out forms."

Throughout his general election campaign, Donald Trump argued that mishandling classified information was such a betrayal of the public’s trust and security, any official who did so was unqualified for the presidency — and fit for a prison sentence. New York Magazine.

 

Adding to Trump's possible guilt for collaborating with the Russians, is his incompetence, total lack of leadership, and the confusing nature of the Trump White House. Time and time again, Trump says one thing and the White House and his advisors say something completely different. This causes confusion on the part of the American people, Congress, and foreign leaders. Trump thinks this is clever.

One such example is the perplexing situation involving Trump's son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner.

Kushner has been stripped of his access to the nation's top secrets after his security clearance was downgraded.

Along with other White House officials who had been operating on interim clearances, Kushner had his access altered last week after chief of staff John Kelly stipulated new changes to the security clearance system.

Aides who previously operated on interim clearances saw their access changed to "secret," a classification for far less sensitive material. It would prevent Kushner from accessing the Presidential Daily Brief, the collection of top secret material prepared for the commander in chief every day.

Supposedly. Kushner's attorney Abbe Lowell wrote: "Those involved in the process again have confirmed that there are dozens of people at Mr. Kushner's level whose process is delayed," Lowell wrote. "No concerns were raised about Mr. Kushner's application. As General Kelly himself said, the new clearance policy will not affect Mr. Kushner's ability to continue to do the very important work he has been assigned by the President."

At the White House on Tuesday, press secretary Sarah Sanders said Kushner's work would continue unabated. "He is a valued member of the team and will continue to do the important work he has been doing since he started in the administration."

No one at the White House and Kushner's lawyer can explain how Kushner can continue his work as the President's senior advisor if he can't access the most sensitive information like PDB and top secret intelligence from the CIA, FBI, and NSA.

There is one possible explanation. All this is smoke and mirrors for the public's consumption produced by our showman President Trump. Just as Trump has ignored his intelligence agencies regarding Russia, he will ignore this in-house procedure created by his chief of staff. After all, who is the boss?

Well, Trump is and laws, procedures, and protocols do not mean a thing to him. He breaks them with impunity and his supporters love him for it.

 

Beating wives, grabbing *******, all part of women being nothing but trophies and can be treated like the merchandise they're seen for.

 

Trump decided it was time for something new.

He recently lost his staff secretary. Seems his staff secretary had this nasty habit of beating up wives.

He recently lost his right hand lady who had an affair with the wife beater, exacerbated a security clearance issue that cost Trump a senior advisor, and told Congressional investigators she lied to protect the President.

He renewed his feud with his A.G. called him Mr. Magoo. In return, Sessions dared the President to fire him.

Yesterday, he told members of Congress that they were collectively frightened of the NRA, and upset his Republican colleagues when he sounded like a Democrat on gun control issues.

His son-in-law is in big trouble because: A) He lost his top secret clearance, making it impossible to perform his duties despite what Sarah Sanders says. And B) After meeting with the leaders of Apollo, a private equity firm, and Citigroup, Kushner Companies received loans totally $500 million, giving nepotism a bad name. Lawyers for Kushner say there is no connection. Stay with me. The humor is only going to get better.

All that was not enough for Trump. He decided that the one area he had not yet despoiled was the booming American economy. So, he targeted it. He said the U.S. will set tariffs of 25 percent for steel and 10 percent for aluminum starting sometime next week. The Dow lost 420.22 points to 24,608.98. The 30-stock index fell as much as 586 points. Shares of Ford Motor dropped 3 percent and General Motors fell nearly 4 percent followed by Boeing, Cummins, Johnson Controls, United Technologies, and other users of steel and aluminum.

Loyal to fault, Republicans did not blame Trump for his horrible decision. They blamed his advisors and Democrats. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said that whoever advised Mr. Trump on the decision "ought to be reprimanded" because the new tariffs are "not going to help America."

"I love the president. I think he's done a terrific job up to now. This could turn everything the other way," Hatch said. Hey, now that is funny.

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Nebraska, blasted the move, calling it "disastrous." "This is leftist economic policy. And we've tried it a bunch of times over the last two centuries," Sasse said. "And every time, American families have suffered. It is bad policy." The humor never ends.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-Louisiana, didn't know what to think. "I just don't know yet. If it looks like I'm hedging, that's because I am." This is really good stuff here.

Paul Ryan and others said that "the President should consider the unintended consequences of this idea and look at other approaches before moving forward." But the most important statement was the one made by Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio. Leave it to a Midwesterner to bring some some sense to the chaos created by Trump.

"I think there's a way to do this with regard to specific products and specific countries," he said. "And I'm hopeful that will be the end result. I know the president made some comments today. But they're waiting until next week to look at all the different exceptions they might make for national security purposes, so let's wait and see what they come up with."

So, in other words, no one, including Trump, knows what Trump is talking about.

That is exactly my point. Trump has done this many times before. He creates a furor of controversy then moves on to another issue. My prediction: Trump tested the waters, found they were boiling hot especially when it comes to fellow Republicans and his cherished Wall Street, and he will back off, maybe not even mentioning the subject again.

Trump never admits to being wrong.