Donald Trump moved to revoke security clearances for Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and a string of other top Democrats and political enemies in a presidential memo issued late on Friday.
The security-clearance revocations also cover the former secretary of state Antony Blinken, the former Wyoming representative Liz Cheney, the former Illinois representative Adam Kinzinger and the New York attorney general, Letitia James, who prosecuted Trump for fraud, as well as Biden’s entire family. They all will no longer have access to classified information – a courtesy typically offered to former presidents and some officials after they have left public service.
“I have determined that it is no longer in the national interest for the following individuals to access classified information,” Trump wrote. He said he would also “direct all executive department and agency heads to revoke unescorted access to secure United States government facilities from these individuals”.
Earlier this month, the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, announced that she had revoked the clearances and blocked several of the people named in Trump’s memo, along with “the 51 signers of the Hunter Biden disinformation letter” – referring to former intelligence agency officials who asserted that the notorious Hunter Biden laptop, which was discovered before the 2020 election, was likely a Russian disinformation campaign.
Trump’s decision to remove Biden from intelligence briefings is a counterstrike against his Democrat political opponent, who had banned Trump from accessing classified documents in 2021, saying the then ex-president could not be trusted because of his “erratic behavior”.
Earlier this week, Trump announced he was pulling Secret Service protections for Biden’s children, Hunter and Ashley, “effective immediately”, after it was claimed that 18 agents had been assigned to the former president’s son for a trip to South Africa and 13 to daughter Ashley.
More broadly, the security-clearance revocations issued on Friday appear to correlate with a cherrypicked list of the president’s political enemies, including the New York attorney general, Letitia James, and the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, both of whom prosecuted Trump during the Biden era.
Others on the list include Fiona Hill, a foreign policy expert who testified against Trump during his first impeachment about her boss’s alleged scheme to withhold military aid to Ukraine as a way of pressuring its president to investigate the Bidens; Alexander Vindman, a lieutenant colonel who also testified at the hearings; and Norman Eisen, a lawyer who oversaw that impeachment.
Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, Republicans who served on the committee investigating the January 6 US Capitol riots, were also added to the list. Trump said the information ban “includes, but is not limited to, receipt of classified briefings, such as the President’s daily brief, and access to classified information held by any member of the intelligence community”.
The move comes as NBC News reported that former president Biden and and his wife, Jill Biden, had volunteered to help fundraise for and help to rebuild the Democratic party after the stinging defeat of Biden’s nominated successor, Kamala Harris, in November.
