Tulsi Gabbard revokes security clearances for 37 US intelligence officials

President Donald Trump’s administration revoked the security authorizations of 37 current and former officials, accusing them of politicizing information for a partisan or personal gain.

In a note published on social networks, the director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard ordered several chiefs of the National Security Agency to immediately undress the officials of their release, declaring that the president was ordered by the president.

Officials include several national security aids that have served under former Democratic presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

Gabbard did not propose any evidence in support of the accusations in the memo.

Security authorizations grant access to government sensitive information, and some former officials retain them to advise successors. Certain jobs in the private sector such as those of defense and aerospace may require access to safety authorizations as a precondition of employment.

It is not yet known whether the 37 people listed in the note still had active authorizations.

Gabbard said Trump had ordered the revocations because civil servants had “abused public confidence by politicizing and manipulating information, on the run of classified information without authorization, and by committing intentional blatant violations of trade standards”.

“Attaching to a security authorization is a privilege, not a right,” wrote Gabbard on X. “People of the intelligence community who betray their oath to the Constitution and put their own interests before the interests of the American people broke the sacred trust they have promised to defend.”

The memo did not exercise charges against specific individuals.

This is not the first time that the Trump administration has revised security authorizations for intelligence managers.

The administration previously did the same for Biden, his vice-president Kamala Harris and former legislators involved in the riot of the American Capitol four years ago.

In recent weeks, Gabbard has led the accusation against intelligence officials from the Obama era who have concluded that Russia had interfered in the 2016 elections, which Trump won.

Trump and Gabbard described the assessment of the intelligence community as a “betrayal conspiracy” to undermine the president’s electoral success.

The Democrats rejected movements as political distraction and accused the White House of diverting the attention of unpopular policies and the alleged ties of Trump with the sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a low attempted distraction,” said a spokesperson for Obama last month.

Gabbard also announced on Wednesday that the office of the National Intelligence Director (ODNI) – A key independent agency which helps the DNI – will reduce its workforce by 40% and will reduce its annual budget of $ 700 million.

In a statement, she said that the agency had become “swollen and ineffective” in the past two decades and was “prey to abuses of power”.

The intelligence community, she said, must bring “serious changes” to fulfill her duty and “provide objective, impartial and timely intelligence”.