“Unaccountable” Pentagon Officials Have “Weaponized” Vetting Of Trump Appointees: WSJ
by Sean Bigley, op-ed via The Wall Street Journal,
ZeroHedge.com
Thu, 05/03/2018
Unaccountable Pentagon officials block a security clearance for a would-be White House aide.
Nothing ends a Washington career like being branded an unacceptable national-security risk. That’s why officials adjudicating personnel-security cases must act in a mature, objective and nonpartisan fashion. But when it comes to vetting Trump appointees, they often aren’t.
Instead, security clearances are being weaponized against the White House by hostile career bureaucrats, thwarting the president’s agenda by holding up or blocking appointees.
Consider the case of Adam Lovinger. Mr. Lovinger is a highly regarded and politically conservative Defense Department official. In January 2017, the Trump administration made a “by name” request for him to serve as a senior director on the White House National Security Council.
Before departing the Pentagon that January, Mr. Lovinger raised documented concerns with his supervisor about the misuse of contractors. One outfit, run by a woman Chelsea Clinton describes as her “best friend,” was being used to perform foreign-relations activities on behalf of the U.S. Mr. Lovinger, an attorney, perceived the arrangement as violating a federal law delineating inherently governmental functions. He also took issue with millions of dollars in public funds being spent on contractor studies of questionable relevance. One taxpayer-funded study sought to determine whether Americans are a “war-like people.”
Months after Mr. Lovinger raised these issues, the Pentagon suspended his security clearance and his White House detail was canceled without warning. The reason? Specious, and constantly evolving, claims of misconduct. One of Mr. Lovinger’s alleged transgressions was that Pentagon officials had improperly marked an academic report he took aboard an airplane for reading.
The Rest…HERE
