Obstructing...and backing down

In an interview with The Washington Post, President Trump said he plans on fighting any subpoenas or requests for current and former White House aides to testify before congressional panels. “There is no reason to go any further, and especially in Congress where it’s very partisan,” Trump said. This includes the subpoena the House Judiciary Committee issued to White House Counsel Don McGahn, according to ABC News. In a statement, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said, “the reports, if accurate, represent one more act of obstruction.”

  Preet Bharar

The White House said on Friday it will allow its former personnel security director Carl Kline to give limited testimony to the House Oversight Committee on May 1, Politico reports.

White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney instructed Kline not to testify for his original April 23 subpoena date, as the House committee continues its investigation into the White House security clearance process. House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings moved to hold Kline in contempt after he failed to appear for his deposition.

  Axios

"[W]e understand the scope of the interview will be limited to White House personnel security policies and practices, consistent with our prior offers for Mr. Kline's voluntary cooperation with the Committee," White House counsel Pat Cipollone wrote in the letter to the committee's top Republican, Rep. Jim Jordan.

The offer, pitched in response to a request from Jordan to avert an escalating confrontation between the White House and Congress, may not satisfy Democratic demands for testimony on some of the most controversial security clearance decisions made by the Trump White House. But it's the first move toward accommodation by an administration that has openly rejected submitting to most Democratic oversight requests. In addition, if lawmakers opt to interview Kline and find his answers overly restricted, the committee could still seek to depose him, according to a source familiar with the process.

[...]

Democrats have been demanding Kline's testimony following a whistleblower's complaint that Kline overruled career staffers to approve high-level security clearances for top White House personnel, even though their applications had been flagged as national security risks. But until late Friday, the White House had ordered Kline to refuse to appear, and Kline's attorney Robert Driscoll indicated that Kline intended to defer to his employer's wishes.

  Politico

By trying to limit his testimony to "policies and practices", I assume Trump is trying to avoid having Kline admit that Trump demanded he give clearances to specific people, and why those people were not approved by the process.

Cummings aides did not respond to requests for comment but it's unlikely he'll accept the terms offered by the White House. In addition to restricting Kline's testimony to general "policies and practices" of the security clearance office, Cipollone also indicated he expected to have a lawyer on his team present in the room, a demand that Democrats have not agreed to and that they've argued conflicts with the committee's past practice.

[...]

Democrats have raised concerns about the security clearance process at the White House for two years. They're particularly interested in how Trump's son in law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, obtained a clearance — especially following recent reports that Trump intervened to overrule recommendations that Kushner not be granted a high-level clearance.

[...]

Cummings has rejected complaints about his handling of the process, calling Republican criticism disingenuous and urging Kline to testify or face potential legal consequences.

"Mr. Kline’s attorney is trying to cast him as caught in the middle of a dispute between the Committee and the White House, asserting that Mr. Kline is ‘not a party in interest.’ That is not correct," Cummings said in a statement Tuesday. "Mr. Kline stands accused of retaliating against a whistleblower who reported serious allegations of abuse to Congress. As the Committee with primary jurisdiction over the Whistleblower Protection Act, we take extremely seriously our responsibility to investigate these allegations and to protect the rights of all whistleblowers who come before Congress."

Game on, I guess

I wonder who's paying his attorney's bills on this one.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Impeach Trump and rid ourselves of the menace known as Sr White House Official 1

Tricia Newbold, a whistleblower in the White House’s personnel security office [...] said she and another career employee determined that Kushner had too many “significant disqualifying factors” to receive a clearance.

Their decision was overruled by Carl Kline, the political appointee who then headed the office, according to Newbold’s interview with committee staff.

[...]

Security clearance experts said the issues raised in Kushner’s background investigation were significant.

[...]

In an interview Monday with Fox News host Laura Ingraham, Kushner said he could not comment on the White House security clearance process, but dismissed the idea that he posed a risk to national security.

“But I can say over the last two years that I’ve been here, I’ve been accused of all different types of things, and all of those things have turned out to be false,” he said.

  WaPo

Like omitting foreign contacts on your entry form? Numerous times. How about being best buddies with Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's would-be despot? He said he had you in his pocket.

The specific issues flagged in his background check remain unknown. But The Washington Post reported last year that foreign officials had privately discussed ways to try to manipulate Kushner by taking advantage of his complex business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience.

Among the nations that discussed ways to influence Kushner were the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel and Mexico, current and former officials said.

Kushner also came to his post with complex business holdings and a family company facing significant debt, including more than $1 billion owed on a Manhattan office tower at 666 Fifth Avenue.

In 2016, at the same time Kushner was helping to run Trump’s presidential campaign, he and company officials spoke with potential foreign investors about becoming partners in the building, including investors in China and Qatar.

Those deals never materialized. In August, Brookfield Asset Management, a Canadian company, announced it was purchasing the office tower.

[...]

“It shows a disregard for the national security of the country if the professionals in the intelligence community believed Jared Kushner shouldn’t get a security clearance, and the president overrode that decision to give him one,” said House Intelligence Committee member Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.).

[...]

In her testimony, Newbold said that when Kushner applied for an even higher level of clearance, another agency contacted her to determine “how we rendered a favorable adjudication,” an inquiry she said reflected that agency’s “serious concerns.”

[...]

Newbold said that she faced retaliation internally after she raised concerns about the clearance process. At one point, she has alleged, Kline moved clearance-related files to a shelf beyond the reach of Newbold, who has a rare form of dwarfism.

That's just mean and nasty.

The House Oversight Committee’s Democratic majority voted this week to issue a subpoena to Kline to testify about his role in approving the security clearances.

Setting a good example

Tricia Newbold, a longtime White House security adviser, told the House Oversight and Reform Committee that she and her colleagues issued “dozens” of denials for security clearance applications that were later approved despite their concerns about blackmail, foreign influence or other red flags, according to panel documents released Monday.

Newbold, an 18-year veteran of the security clearance process who has served under both Republican and Democratic presidents, said she warned her superiors that clearances “were not always adjudicated in the best interest of national security” — and was retaliated against for doing so.

[...]

[She called] Congress her “last hope” for addressing what she considers improper conduct that has left the nation’s secrets exposed.

[...]

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), the committee chairman, said in a letter to the White House Counsel’s Office that his panel would vote on Tuesday to subpoena at least one individual who overruled Newbold — the committee’s first compulsory move aimed at the White House.

Cummings vowed more subpoenas would follow if the White House didn’t cooperate with his panel’s investigation.

  WaPo

So, more subpoenas will follow.

The Trump administration has refused to comply with numerous document requests and inquiries Cummings has made on the topic over the past two years. Cummings identified the security clearance process as one of his top priorities after Democrats took the majority in the House in the fall, but his panel has not received a single document from the White House on the issue.

[...]

White House officials whose security clearances are being scrutinized by the House Oversight Committee include the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump, her husband Jared Kushner and national security adviser John Bolton, according to the panel’s letter.

[...]

Newbold expressed fear in coming forward, telling the panel, “I’m terrified of going back. I know that this will not be perceived in favor of my intentions, which is to bring back the integrity of the office.”

She said she has already faced retaliation for declining to issue security clearances and challenging her superiors as they sought to implement clearance-process changes she disagreed with during the Trump administration.

She won't be back for long.

Newbold said she was suspended without pay for 14 days in late January despite “no prior formal disciplinary action” in her nearly two-decade tenure. And when she returned, she was removed from her position as a “second level adjudicator” on security clearances and is no longer a direct supervisor.

[...]

Newbold told the panel that she began keeping a list of employees whose applications were denied but were later given clearances despite concerns about their ties to foreign influence, conflicts of interests, questionable or criminal conduct, financial problems or drug abuse.

That tally now reaches 25, she said, “including two current senior White House officials, as well as contractors and individuals throughout different components of the Executive Office of the President,” the letter says.

[...]

Newbold also raised concerns about new White House security clearance policies that she says put the nation at risk. For example, the White House security office no longer checks the credits of applicants, which she said keeps reviewers from knowing whether applicants could be susceptible to blackmail because of their debts.

Newbold also said the White House was “getting out of control” with the number of interim security clearances awarded to White House officials who didn’t yet have permanent clearance status. Those temporary passes enabled aides to access classified information — including some sensitive information — for long periods of time.

[...]

The committee in its Monday letter also revealed that it has also spoken with other whistleblowers about the security clearance process, suggesting Newbold’s story is unlikely to be the last. For now, however, the individuals were too afraid about the “risk to their careers to come forward publicly,” the panel wrote.

Look to Newbold's example; do the right thing.

We need to know what was holding up John Bolton's clearance.  He's the national security adivsor!