WASHINGTON, D.C. (NBC News) — President Donald Trump’s decision this week to revoke the security clearances of more than four dozen former intelligence officials is an unprecedented move, underscoring his willingness to break decades-old norms to please his supporters and punish his perceived opponents, legal experts say.
“This is the most politically saturated security action since the Oppenheimer case in the 1950s,” said Dan Meyer, a Washington-based lawyer who specializes in security clearance cases.
Meyer was referring to Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who oversaw the secret program to build the atomic bomb during World War II, whose security clearance was removed at the height of the McCarthy era over his prewar associations with the Communist Party.
Previous administrations have been accused of rescinding security clearances based on prejudice or political bias. Until 1995, for example, gay people often had their security clearances removed as officials claimed they could be subject to blackmail. During the Vietnam War, officials or contractors perceived to be opponents of the war had their clearances canceled, said Meyer, a partner at the law firm Tully Rinckey.
But no president has ever waded directly into the clearance process so publicly and on such a large scale as Trump did when he rescinded security clearances for 50 people in one step, Meyer and other legal experts said. Nor has a commander in chief chosen to publicly rescind security clearances for former CIA directors, deputy directors and other former top-ranking intelligence officials, many of whom worked for administrations from both parties.
In an executive order issued hours after his inauguration on Monday, Trump stripped 49 former senior officials of their security clearances for signing a letter more than four years ago that Trump said showed “misleading and inappropriate political coordination” with Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.
