Top Justice Dept. official alerted White House 2 weeks ago to ongoing issues in Kushner’s security clearance
By Carol D. Leonnig, Robert Costa and Josh Dawsey February 23 at 5:37 PM Email the author
A top Justice Department official alerted the White House two weeks ago that significant information requiring additional investigation would further delay the security clearance process of senior adviser Jared Kushner, according to three people familiar with the discussion.
The Feb. 9 phone call from Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein to White House Counsel Donald McGahn came amid growing public scrutiny of a number of administration officials without final security clearances. Most prominent among them is Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, who has had access to some of the nation’s most sensitive material for the last year while waiting for his background investigation to be completed.
A week after the call from Rosenstein, White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly announced that staffers whose clearances have not been finalized will no longer be able to view top-secret information — meaning that Kushner could stand to lose his status as early as Friday.
As president, Trump can grant Kushner a high-level security clearance, even if his background investigation continues to drag on. But Trump said Friday that he would leave that decision to Kelly.
more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/top-justice-dept-official-alerted-white-house-2-weeks-ago-to-ongoing-issues-in-kushners-security-clearance/2018/02/23/aa9b37c8-17f4-11e8-92c9-376b4fe57ff7_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-banner-main_kushnercall-545pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.b6f5c158e30a
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