Trump Revokes Biden’s Security Clearances, Intelligence Briefings
AFP
Washington: US President Donald Trump, who is shaking up the government at a furious pace, announced Friday night that he is “immediately revoking” former President Joe Biden’s security clearance and will bar him from receiving intelligence briefings.
“There is no need for Joe Biden to continue receiving access to classified information,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Trump stated that his decision was based on the precedent set by Biden in 2021. At that time, Biden had revoked Trump’s access to intelligence briefings, arguing that Trump’s “erratic behavior” made him untrustworthy with classified information.
“I would rather not speculate out loud,” Biden had said in 2021. “I just think that there is no need for him to have the intelligence briefings. What value is giving him an intelligence briefing? What impact does he have at all, other than the fact he might slip and say something?”
Intelligence briefings are traditionally provided to former presidents as a courtesy after they leave office.
Trump also referenced the Robert Hur Report, the special counsel’s investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents post-vice presidency.
“The Hur Report revealed that Biden suffers from ‘poor memory’ and, even in his ‘prime,’ could not be trusted with sensitive information,” Trump wrote.
The report made several observations about Biden’s memory, which angered his allies and provided political ammunition to Republicans. Hur noted that Biden could present himself to a jury as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
However, the special counsel declined to pursue criminal charges, concluding that the evidence did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Biden had violated the law.
In one of his first executive actions since returning to the White House, Trump also revoked the security clearances of dozens of former intelligence officials who had signed a 2020 letter suggesting that emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop bore “the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.”
Additionally, Trump revoked the clearance of his former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who has been a vocal critic of him, as well as that of Gen. Mark Milley, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
