WASHINGTON — Newly anointed national intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard said on Monday that she was pulling the security clearances and “barred access to classified information” for former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and other perceived foes of President Donald Trump, including numerous other Biden administration officials.
Gabbard also said the president’s daily intelligence briefing will no longer be provided to Biden, a courtesy typically granted to former presidents but one that Biden barred Trump from receiving in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and Trump’s attempts to stay in power despite his 2020 election loss.
Trump had said in February he was going to retaliate against his predecessor and senior Biden administration officials, accusing his predecessor of a cognitive decline that meant he “could not be trusted with sensitive information.” On Tuesday, Biden could not immediately be reached for comment.
“What a bunch of losers. I revoked the security clearances of Anthony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, John Brennan, James Clapper and every non-patriot who lied to cover up Hunter Biden's laptop from hell,” Trump said in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference’s convention in February. “I also revoked Joe Biden's security clearances, the Biden crime family security clearances, and they'll no longer be allowed to access state secrets while selling themselves all around the world. Oh, well. No, these were bad people.”
The latest crackdown on enemies of the president and his administration comes as federal prosecutors and law enforcement officials have threatened Democratic officials in Washington and across the country with legal repercussions and funding cuts, pulled the security clearances of lawyers who worked with former special counsel Jack Smith and former Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Mark Milley, and imprisoned a pro-Palestinian activist living as a permanent legal resident in New York without charging him with a crime.
Requests for comment from Blinken through his literary agent and book publisher were not returned. Sullivan did not immediately respond to an inquiry through his department at the University of New Hampshire and Bragg’s office also did not return a request for comment. James’ office referred inquiries to a statement from February when Trump first announced his intention to revoke the clearances from his political enemies: “What security clearance?”
According to the New York attorney general’s office, she never had a security clearance in her current role. Gabbard’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the discrepancy.
It’s not clear if Bragg — a county-level district attorney who successfully secured the first criminal conviction of a former president in U.S. history last year — also had a security clearance or not, but the Manhattan district attorney’s office occasionally prosecutes and collaborates on cases connected to national security matters, including terrorism.
Other officials included in the crackdown included former deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco, attorneys Mark Zaid and Norm Eisen and former Mueller special counsel investigation official Andrew Weissmann. Eisen said on CNN on Monday night that he believed the decision was in retaliation for his work on litigation against the administration.
“I am actually insulted that I did not receive my own Executive Order and instead had to rely upon the [New York Post] and now this tweet, which does not frame as well,” Zaid wrote on X in response to Gabbard’s announcement. He later argued the move was a violation of due process protections.
And Gabbard said she revoked the security clearances of the 51 signees of an October 2020 letter arguing that the emergence of a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden had the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign. The emergence of the laptop was never publicly connected to any Russian intelligence effort and federal prosecutors said in a court filing last year that it belonged to the younger Biden.
Those who signed the letter included three former CIA directors — Leon Panetta, John Brennan and Michael Hayden — and a slew of other former U.S. intelligence officials. Trump had threatened to revoke the security clearances for Brennan and Hayden during Trump’s first term, but the process was reportedly never completed.
U.S. intelligence and government officials often retain security clearances after leaving government service for jobs in the private sector that require it, while the most senior officials traditionally retain it to consult their successors “regarding matters about which they may have special insights and as a professional courtesy,” as Trump put it in a 2018 statement.
