Trump ‘immediately’ revokes Biden’s security clearance and daily briefing in act of revenge against predecessor
Trump ‘immediately’ revokes Biden’s security clearance and daily briefing in act of revenge against predecessor
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Trump was previously under indictment for allegedly unlawfully retaining national defense information after he left office following his first term. President Donald Trump on Friday said he would be denying former president Joe Biden any access to classified information and the courtesy briefings traditionally provided to former presidents as needed. In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he was “immediately revoking Joe Biden’s Security Clearances, and stopping his daily Intelligence Briefings,” following a precedent Biden had set four years earlier when he instructed U.S. intelligence officials to halt any briefings to Trump, citing the then-former president’s “erratic behavior” in the wake of his 2020 election loss.
As elected officials, presidents do not hold security clearances but they have traditionally been given courtesy briefings on an as-needed basis, such as when traveling abroad or when meeting with foreign government officials. It’s unclear whether Biden had requested or received any such briefings since he left office last month. Trump also claimed his decision was informed by former special counsel Robert Hur’s report on Biden’s possession of classified documents dating back to his time as a senator and vice president.
In a misstatement of what Hur had actually written, Trump claimed that the former prosecutor “revealed that Biden suffers from ‘poor memory’ and “could not be trusted with sensitive information.”. The president, who was previously underIndictment for unlawfully, retaining national defense information at his Florida beach club after his first term ended in 2021, further wrote that he would “ always protect our National Security,” before adding: “JOE, YOU’RE FIRED. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”.
