Several White House staffers with pending security clearance issues have been reportedly fired or reassigned

pulse

March 7, 2018 7:26 PM

The White House is reshuffling amid the fallout from the Rob Porter scandal.

The White House has fired or reassigned several staffers who had pending issues with their security clearances.
Several top aides, including senior adviser Jared Kushner and former staff secretary Rob Porter, operated with interim top-secret clearance until recently, when Porter was forced to resign amid allegations of domestic abuse.
Since then, chief of staff John Kelly has restructured the guidelines governing who has access to the nation's most sensitive intelligence.
Kushner was one of several aides to lose interim clearance last month.

The White House has fired or reassigned a number of West Wing staffers who had pending problems with their security clearance forms, ABC News reported Wednesday.

Members of President Donald Trump's administration, particularly senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, have long faced questions over their security clearances which granted some staffers access to top-secret classified intelligence.

But the issue attracted renewed scrutiny last month, when it emerged that former White House staff secretary Rob Porter held an interim top-secret security clearance while he was under investigation over domestic abuse allegations.

White House chief of staff John Kellyinstituted new guidelinesthat he said would help close some loopholes.

"In ordinary circumstances, the existing processes we inherited, along with the reforms I have implemented in the past months, have generally worked well," Kelly said in a memo on February 16. "But recent events have exposed some remaining shortcomings."

Last month, all White House aides who held interim top-secret clearances were downgraded to "secret,"

pulse