Top secret: Trump's revamp of U.S.
security clearances stumbling - officials, report
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[June 19, 2019]
By Mark Hosenball
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - At a time when the
United States says China is aggressively spying on its government, a
push by President Donald Trump to fix the system that determines who can
and cannot be trusted with secrets is behind schedule and disorganized,
according to U.S. officials and an internal agency report.
While the process for security clearance background checks has been
broken for years, the Republican Trump administration delayed starting a
revamp for months, said Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the
Senate Intelligence Committee.
With a June 24 deadline for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM)
to begin transferring thousands of employees and contractors to the
Department of Defense under Trump's plan, it is unclear when the
overhaul will be completed, said four government sources who requested
anonymity.
Most security clearances involve jobs at the White House, Defense,
State, Homeland Security, Energy and Justice departments, the Central
Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2019/Jun/19/images/ads/current/countryfinan_sda_RELAY_2019.png)
Backlogs in the process can delay appointments to sensitive positions or
complicate the handling of various levels of America's secret
information.
Over the years, OPM has accumulated a backlog of more than 400,000
uncompleted clearance investigations, with some taking more than a year
to finish, congressional experts said. A September 2018 internal OPM
report seen by Reuters said the Trump transfer is handicapped by the
consequences of a cyber attack on OPM's data systems in 2014-2015 that
compromised personally identifiable information of millions of people.
The U.S. suspected that China was involved in the hack, which Beijing
said was criminal and not state-sponsored. Russia, whose agents U.S.
agencies said meddled in the 2016 election with cyber attacks and
disinformation, remains a determined U.S. intelligence adversary,
security officials said. Moscow denies interfering in the election.
Neither the OPM nor the Defense Department responded to questions about
the internal report.
In the past year, three former senior U.S. intelligence officials, who
all held top-secret clearances at some point, have pleaded guilty or
been convicted of spying for China https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-spy/former-cia-officer-jailed-for-20-years-for-spying-for-china-idUSKCN1SN2N0.
The Chinese government disputes U.S. allegations that it tries to
recruit Americans with access to government and commercial secrets
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-linkedin-china-espionage-exclusive/exclusive-u-s-accuses-china-of-super-aggressive-spy-campaign-on-linkedin-idUSKCN1LG15Y.
'LACK OF COMMUNICATION'
The transition of background investigations to the Defense Department
was one piece of a larger reform of how the government does clearances
and "it was unfortunately slowed because the president sat on an
executive order enabling the transfer for some nine months," Warner
said.
The internal OPM report found that "conflicting expectations and lack of
communication" were hampering the handover.
Since the report's completion, the process has proceeded erratically,
with confusion on issues such as funding and data management, officials
familiar with the matter said.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2019/Jun/19/images/ads/current/garage_sale_bch.png)
A senior Trump administration official noted that the transfer of
security background investigations from one government department to
another was a major operation with challenges.
"However, this administration has already reduced the security clearance
inventory by 40%, from 725,000 to 416,000, and we look forward to
continuing the transfer as efficiently and effectively in the coming
months," the official said.
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![](../images/061919pics/news_m15.jpg)
U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly (L) (D-VA) talks with Representatives
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rep. Robin Kelly (D-IL) and Ayanna
Pressley (D-MA) after the House Oversight and Reform Committee voted
to subpoena the White House about security clearances while meeting
on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., April 2, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos
Barria
![](../images/ads/current/fitzpatrick_lda_SPONSOR_2017.png)
Trump, who has targeted the OPM for permanent shutdown, began the
handover in June 2018, but he did not formally announce it until an
April 24, 2019 executive order.
OPM, under Trump's order, is supposed to begin the transfer of 3,300
agency employees and 6,000 OPM contractors to the Defense Department
by June 24 and finish it by Oct. 1.
The work of OPM's National Background Investigations Bureau (NBIB)
would move to the Pentagon's Defense Security Service (DSS), which
will be renamed the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency
(DCSA).
WEEDING OUT
Security clearance background checks are a routine requirement for
people hoping to be hired by the federal government and contractors,
as well as current employees looking to move up in the clearance
hierarchy: confidential, secret and top secret.
For top-secret clearance candidates, investigators interview
friends, co-workers and neighbors about the backgrounds, character
and habits of job applicants. The process is meant to weed out
people who cannot be trusted with classified or sensitive government
information.
A U.S. House of Representatives committee is investigating whether
some staffers in Trump's White House received high-level security
clearances over the objections of career officials, including
Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Efforts to transfer the 3,300 OPM employees to the Pentagon appear
to be moving forward, but as of early June, the transfer of
contractors to the Pentagon faced steep challenges, one of the
sources involved said.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2019/Jun/19/images/ads/current/atlantabank_lda_SFARM_2019.png)
"It's chaotic. People are trying to make it happen. But it's change
on change on change and this is the kind of thing that people run
away from," said the source.
Asked about criticisms of the handover, an OPM spokesman said:
"Since the administration proposed the transition in June 2018, NBIB
has been working closely with its DSS counterparts to conduct a
seamless transition by October 1, 2019."
Under Trump's plan, the Pentagon also wants to end periodic
check-ups of clearance holders and adopt a system in which the new
DCSA would use artificial intelligence (AI) to periodically vet the
names and credentials of clearance holders online.
Defense Department officials worry an AI-based system cannot work as
well as in-person investigations, said one source involved in the
transition.
It may be months, or even years, before the Pentagon has a data
system capable of handling all the relevant security clearance
information, said the same source.
"Large scale government IT efforts do not have great track records,"
Senator Warner said. "I look forward to working with the executive
branch and our industry partners on modernizing the clearance
system. But it will not be easy or fast."
(Reporting by Mark Hosenball; Additional reporting by Steve Holland;
Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Grant McCool)
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