National Security
Report: A year after the election, 100 White House staffers lacked permanent security clearances
Documents obtained by CNN show that as of November, more than 100 staffers in the Executive Office of the President were still operating on interim security clearances, including high-profile senior advisers Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner and former White House Staff Secretary Rob Porter.
People with full permanent clearances are supposed to be careful about the information they share with those operating on an interim basis, but as staff secretary, Porter saw a wide range of documents and ultimately decided what papers should go to President Trump's desk. It's not clear how many staffers have since been granted full clearances or if it was a backlog that caused the delay in approving clearances or the background checks.
In November, Ivanka Trump, Kushner, and Porter were all still operating with interim access to both Top Secret information and Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI), CNN reports. Of the staffers who still had interim clearances in November, at least 24 began working for the Trump administration on Jan. 20, 2017. Read more about the clearance process at CNN.