Over the weekend, President Trump officially revoked access to classified information for his predecessor, Joe Biden, and a number of former White House officials and political opponents, including Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton.
The MAGA leader thus carries out the plan he announced in early February, when he said he would take the measure in question against the former Democratic president.
“He set this precedent in 2021,” Trump said at the time, “when he instructed the Intelligence Community (IC) to prevent the 45th president of the United States (me!) from accessing national security details, a courtesy afforded to former presidents.”
“I have determined that it is no longer in the national interest for the following individuals to access classified information,” he wrote yesterday, disclosing that the decision in question will also affect every member of the Biden family, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, New York Attorney General Letitia James, some officials from the previous administration, such as Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan and Lisa Monaco, and several Republicans who sided against the MAGA leader, including Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney.
Authorization for access to classified information was also revoked for Alexander Vindman, a key witness leading to Trump’s impeachment by House Democrats for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in 2019, and Fiona Hill, a former official in the first administration led by the MAGA leader, who was also a witness in the impeachment over the Republican president’s phone call with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky.
“I hereby direct every executive department and agency head to take all additional action as necessary and consistent with existing law to revoke any active security clearances held by the aforementioned individuals and to immediately rescind their access to classified information,” Trump concluded yesterday.
In 2021, Biden took the same action against his Republican rival after the attack on Capitol Hill by his supporters. A decision that, evidently, Trump has never forgotten.
This time, then, the U.S. president wanted to return the “courtesy” to his predecessor, while targeting the key politicians and critics who have tried to thwart him over the years.
