White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly announced an overhaul of the government’s system for managing security-clearance investigations, after the embarrassing case of a top aide to President Trump who kept working amid domestic abuse accusations.
In a five-page memo Friday, Mr. Kelly acknowledged mistakes and put the responsibility on the FBI and Justice Department to hand-deliver updates on background investigations.
“The American people deserve a White House staff that meets the highest standards and that has been carefully vetted — especially those who work closely with the president or handle sensitive national security information,” Mr. Kelly wrote. “We should — and in the future, must — do better.”
Copies of the memo went to White House counsel Don McGahn, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray.
The new procedures come a little more than a week after the resignation of White House staff secretary Rob Porter. He had been working under temporary security clearance with access to highly classified material for months after claims of emotional and physical abuse by his two ex-wives were reported to the FBI.
Mr. Kelly said in the memo, “recent events have exposed some remaining shortcomings.”
“Now is the time to take a hard look at the way the White House processes clearance requests,” he said.
The memo states that “going forward, all [background investigations] of potential Commissioned Officers should be flagged for the FBI at the outset and then hand-delivered to the White House Counsel personally upon completion. The FBI official who delivers these files should verbally brief the White House Counsel on any information in those files they deem to be significantly derogatory.”
After the Porter case arose, it was revealed that as many as two dozen current West Wing employees are still working with temporary security clearance, including top presidential adviser Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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