Axios reports that, per a senior Democratic aid, a White House source provided documents regarding Jared Kushner’s and Ivanka Trump’s security clearances to the House Oversight Committee.
Earlier this week, per CNN, the White House refused to turn over the documents related to the process by which staffers are granted security clearance to the committee. A letter from White House counsel Pat Cipollone called the committee’s request “unprecedented and extraordinarily intrusive”. Elijah Cummings [D-MD], head of the Oversight Committee, has said that if this last request for voluntary cooperation is denied the next step would be to issue subpoenas.
However, according to Axios’ source, in spite of the White House’s refusal to honor the committee’s request, the committee had obtained the documents from a White House leaker by early February.
The documents cover the window of time between spring of 2017 to spring of 2018 and detail how Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump received security clearances, offering a detailed timeline of how the president’s son-in-law and daughter were given clearance and who was involved in the process. According to the Democratic aid, the documents are “part of the puzzle that we would be asking for”.
Axios obtained one document from September 2017 which offers a window into the process of Kushner’s security clearance being downgraded to “interim”. It states, “Per conversation with WH counsel the clearance was changed to interim Top Secret until we can confirm that the DOJ or someone else actually granted a final clearance. This action was taken out of an abundance of caution because the background investigation has not been completed.” Another document, from February 2018, shows that John Kelly, then-chief of staff, noted “Clearance downgraded to Interim Secret per COS direction”.
Neither the House Oversight Committee or the White House offered a comment regarding Axios’ report.
