Trump Overruled His Staff to Give Ivanka Access to Top-Secret Intelligence

By Tina Nguyen, Vanity Fair

06 March 19

Both Don McGahn and John Kelly reportedly refused, so Trump upgraded his daughter’s clearance himself.

ast week, The New York Times reported that President Donald Trump ordered that his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, be given a top-secret security clearance, even after intelligence officials discovered problems with his background check. The F.B.I., White House counsel Don McGahn, and Chief of Staff John Kelly all expressed concerns, but Trump overruled them. Back in January, Trump had said he would never do such a thing. “I know that there was issues back and forth about security for numerous people, actually,” he said in an interview. “But I don’t want to get involved in that stuff.” After the Times report, the White House changed its tune. “We don’t discuss security clearances,” senior adviser Kellyanne Conway told Fox News. “But I will tell you that the president has the absolute right to do what was described.”

No surprise then that CNN reports Trump pulled the same strings for his daughter, Ivanka Trump, who is also a senior adviser. According to the report, Trump pushed Kelly and McGahn (both of whom have since left the White House), so as to avoid the appearance of nepotism. Both refused, three sources told CNN, and so Trump granted Ivanka and Kushner top-secret security clearances himself. Ivanka said in an interview over three weeks ago that her father had “no involvement” in getting her or her husband their security clearances. (“I honestly don’t know what’s sadder,” comedian John Oliver quipped the other night, “either Ivanka is knowingly lying about her dad forcing her and Jared’s security clearance through, or she genuinely thinks they got it on merit on their own.”)

It’s unknown what red flags might have emerged during Ivanka’s background check, whether she was flagged by the F.B.I. like Kushner, or whether her clearance was held up for other reasons. Regardless, McGahn and Kelly clearly were not comfortable intervening in the process on behalf of the president and his daughter. (The White House has declined to comment on these stories.)

It’s also not clear why Ivanka needed a top-secret security clearance at all. Unlike Kushner, whose laundry list of responsibilities includes negotiating peace in the Middle East, Ivanka’s portfolio is mostly centered around workforce development and female entrepreneurship. But President Trump had been insistent that both have top-level access, after their clearances were temporarily revoked as part of a new system Kelly put in place in the wake of the Rob Porter domestic-abuse scandal. According to CNN, Trump didn’t understand why there was an issue in granting their clearances because, he figured, they would likely move back to New York soon anyway.

Kushner’s security-clearance scuffle is far more contentious than Ivanka’s, given his numerous entanglements with Israel, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates, among others, as well as his presence at the infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russian agent promising “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. (Kushner also has displayed an unusual malleability in the hands of the Saudi Crown Prince, who once reportedly bragged that Kushner was “in his pocket.”) Last year, The Washington Post reported that at least four countries—including the U.A.E., China, Israel, and Mexico, had privately discussed ways to gain leverage over Kushner, given his international business dealings and lack of foreign-policy experience.