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On Thursday evening I kept my regular date with "Tucker Carlson Tonight", talking about, of course, the removal of John Brennan's security clearance. Brennan, a man psychologically unfit to be either CIA director or "former CIA director", is now the darling of the left - the people's spook, on whose behalf Senator Blumenthal is arguing that America's founders had cannily foreseen the need for a security clearance. Click here to watch: Incidentally, that New York Times column by Brennan bears the headline "President Trump's Claims of No Collusion Are Hogwash". The only evidence the ex-Director of Central Intelligence adduces to...

“Methinks thou dost protest too much!” Here is video of bitter NeverTrumper Phil Mudd on CNN having a total meltdown last night because Conservative Paris Dennard actually called him and others with Security Clearances out for trading on those clearances to get consulting and commentating gigs. Mudd rose to prominence at CNN after he consistently trashed Donald Trump on air. CNN could bring him on as an “Intelligence Expert” and know he would always hammer Trump. Here, Paris Dennard says it is widely known in Washington that if you have a Security Clearance you will get paid more money to...

If Brennan still had his security clearance, then it was unlawfully reactivated by the FBI or CIA for nefarious purposes, or he was still working for them in an official capacity I received several emails from fellow veterans asking: How in the hell did Brennan still have an active security clearance if he wasn’t holding a position that required one? What is going on with Clapper, Rice, Brennan and others still having access to classified information? What’s all this about pulling security clearances from people who shouldn’t have one anyway? Like me, they know that, according to regulations, civil servants...

The left continues to lose its collective mind over President Trump’s decision to revoke John Brennan’s security clearance. Yesterday, we noted Andrea Mitchell suggesting that Trump’s action could constitute “obstruction of justice.” Today, Washington Post editor/columnist Eugene Robinson, on Morning Joe, took things an absurd step further, saying Trump’s move was grounds for impeachment: “This is just a blatant abuse of power. I mean, I don’t know what else you can call it. And really should be one of the eventual articles of impeachment.”Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

President Donald Trump has started “the mechanism” for pulling security clearances from “certain individuals,” a White House aide revealed Tuesday. White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley told reporters aboard Air Force One traveling to Joint Base Andrews in Camp Springs, Maryland, that the administration has begun taking the necessary steps to revoke access to classified information from former top intelligence officials but declined to get into specifics. “What I can say is that the president finds it extremely inappropriate for somebody to go on television under the perception of legitimacy, integrity and level false and baseless claims against another...

The departure of national security adviser H.R. McMaster and his replacement by former U.N. ambassador John Bolton are both significant and welcome. Bolton will be a team player on Team Trump and not someone with his own agenda who seeks the advice and counsel of those trying to undermine the Trump administration. Leaks such as the one of the memo warning President Trump not to congratulate Vladimir Putin on Putin's re-election will undoubtedly stop, as McMaster and his staff were viewed as the source for many of them.

Swamp creatures don’t dig outsiders getting in on their act. Jeremy Bash gave a prime example of the phenomenon on today’s Morning Joe. Commenting on the news that Jared Kushner has lost his top-secret clearance, Bash–a former Obama official–snidely suggested that people with Kushner’s lower-level “secret” clearance were fit only to: “deliver the mail, or mow the White House lawn, or serve navy-bean soup at the White House mess.” Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

The U.S. government's system of security clearances for top officials is "broken" and must be completely overhauled, the Trump administration's intelligence chief told The Associated Press.

In less than two weeks, the Office of Personnel Management is expected to launch the new background investigation service to help fix the mess created by a series of incidents ranging from a lack of contractor oversight to the massive data breach affecting 21.5 million current and former federal employees. Officials promise the National Background Investigations Bureau (NBIB) will be a much different organization than its predecessor, the Federal Investigative Services. “It will have a politically appointed director, will be headquartered in D.C. and be a full member of the Performance Accountability Council, so it aligns with customers for increased...

At his first polygraph test to enter the CIA, the future director had a secret. John Brennan on Thursday recalled being asked a standard question for a top security clearance at his early CIA lie detector test: Have you ever worked with or for a group that was dedicated to overthrowing the US?“I froze,” Brennan said during a panel discussion about diversity in the intelligence community at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual conference. “This was back in 1980, and I thought back to a previous election where I voted, and I voted for the Communist Party candidate.”Brennan was responding...

I pointed out in an earlier thread that back in the day, the provider of the information (an employee) bore the responsibility of verifying the clearance of the recipient (also an employee) AND the need to know. But those were the days before e-mail was widely available. Surely marking an e-mail with a (C) should not be considered adequate security! Shouldn't every classified e-mail be encrypted, with the decryption key pegged to the employee's security clearance? I will agree that such a policy would not have prevented Hillary's misdeeds, or Comey's whitewash of them. But then she couldn't have claimed...

Trump surrogates have been accused of debasing themselves by supporting The Donald. But have any sunk so low as poor Harold Ford, Jr., the Hillary surrogate who humiliated himself today on national TV? Appearing on With All Due Respect, former Dem congressman Ford, disagreed with Rudy Giuliani’s statement made earlier in the day that Hillary Clinton could not get a security clearance given FBI Director Comey’s conclusion that she acted “extremely carelessly” in the handling of classified material. When Ford claimed that if he were Attorney General, he would hire Hillary for a sensitive position involving national security, it seemed...

Newly released State Department emails help reveal how a major Clinton Foundation donor was placed on a sensitive government intelligence advisory board even though he had no obvious experience in the field, a decision that appeared to baffle the department’s professional staff. The emails further reveal how, after inquiries from ABC News, the Clinton staff sought to “protect the name” of the Secretary, “stall” the ABC News reporter and ultimately accept the resignation of the donor just two days later. Copies of dozens of internal emails were provided to ABC News by the conservative political group Citizens United, which obtained...

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is blaming an exhaustive White House vetting process for the fact that the Obama administration has not yet named a person to run the U.S. Agency for International Development. Six months into the administration's tenure without having appointed someone to the agency's top spot, Clinton told USAID employees on Monday that several people had turned down the job due to overly burdensome financial and personal disclosure requirements that she called a "nightmare," "frustrating beyond words" and "ridiculous."

A private industry IT security firm tells Fox News that personal data stolen over the span of several high-profile U.S. cyber breaches is being indexed by China's intelligence service into a massive Facebook-like network. According to CrowdStrike founder Dmitri Alperovitch, Chinese hackers are using information gained from the breaches of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, as well as intrusions into the Anthem and CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield health insurance networks, to build a complete profile of federal employees in what the company calls a "Facebook of Everything." "That can now be used to embarrass you publicly and force you to...

The Secret Service has had a bad couple of years, with prostitution scandals and security gaps that have embarrassed the agency — and in one instance, had an intruder running through the White House. As part of the effort to bolster security around the President, the agency has gone on a hiring spree, bringing in fresh talent to address some of the recent failures. The Washington Post’s Carol Leonnig, who has reported more than a few of those failures, now reports that the rush to man the posts has resulted in agents working in sensitive areas without the proper...

How badly the Secret Service was being run You’ve got problems. You’ve got a guy jumping the White House fence, running up the steps and actually making it to the stairway that leads to the residence - with a knife on him. That’s a problem. You’ve got a drunk agent crashing into a White House barricade. You’ve got prostitutes in agents’ hotel rooms . . . yeah, you’ve got problems, Secret Service. So you get a new director. OK. You pretty much had to do that. And then you start hiring a bunch of new agents as quickly as you...

*snip* Under an executive order signed by Bush, a newly created Presidential Transition Coordinating Council will meet Wednesday to begin mapping out an orderly handoff to Republican John McCain or Democrat Barack Obama. The McCain and Obama campaigns have already begun preparations for a possible transition. The White House said the administration has been working with representatives from both sides since the summer and has provided security clearances for key aides.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein questioned a top Homeland Security Department official Thursday on why his agency has reportedly resisted sharing information with state intelligence officers and even Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's own homeland-security director. Feinstein asked Charlie Allen, the chief intelligence officer for the Homeland Security Department, about her staff's findings that the federal agency has denied state and local officials at a Sacramento intelligence-sharing facility to obtain top security clearances. Moreover, California Office of Homeland Security Director Matthew Bettenhausen is not receiving "intelligence he knows exists," Feinstein said. Bettenhausen answers to Schwarzenegger; he formerly worked for DHS in Washington. DHS, Feinstein...

Industry is cranking up the pressure on the Defense Department to resume processing applications for contractor security clearances by calling on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to immediately resolve the issue. Members of seven industry groups yesterday sent a letter urging Rumsfeld to reverse the Defense Security Services’ decision to stop accepting industry applications for all security clearances. The agency, which provides security support services to the DOD, federal government defense contractors, ceased the activity on April 28, due to a lack of funding and the high volume of applications. “We request that immediate action be taken to reverse this decision...