President Donald Trump’s administration has revoked the security clearances of 37 current and former US officials, accusing them of politicising intelligence for partisan or personal gain.
In a memo posted on social media, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard directed several national security agency heads to immediately strip the officials of their clearances, stating the move was ordered by the president.
The officials include several national security aides who served under former Democratic presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama.
Gabbard offered no evidence to support the accusations in the memo.
Security clearances grant access to sensitive government information, and some former officials retain them to advise successors. Some private sector jobs such as those in defence and aerospace can require access to security clearances as a pre-condition for employment.
It remains unclear whether all 37 individuals listed in the memo still held active clearances.
Gabbard said Trump ordered the revocations because the officials had “abused the public trust by politicizing and manipulating intelligence, leaking classified intelligence without authorization, and or committing intentional egregious violations of tradecraft standards”.
“Being entrusted with a security clearance is a privilege, not a right,” Gabbard wrote on X. “Those in the Intelligence Community who betray their oath to the Constitution and put their own interests ahead of the interests of the American people have broken the sacred trust they promised to uphold.”
The memo did not lay out charges against specific individuals.
This is not the first time the Trump administration has revoked security clearances for intelligence officials.
The administration has previously done the same for Biden, his Vice-President Kamala Harris, and former lawmakers involved in investigations of the US Capitol riot four years ago.
In recent weeks, Gabbard has led the charge against Obama-era intelligence officials who concluded that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election, which Trump won.
Trump and Gabbard have described the intelligence community’s assessment as a “treasonous conspiracy” to undermine the president’s electoral success.
Democrats have dismissed the moves as a political distraction, and accused the White House of deflecting attention from unpopular policies and Trump’s alleged ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction,” a spokesman for Obama said last month.
Gabbard also announced on Wednesday that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) – a key independent agency that assists the DNI – will downsize its workforce by 40% and reduce its annual budget by $700m.
In a statement, she said the agency had become “bloated and inefficient” over the past two decades and was “rife with abuse of power”.
The intelligence community, she said, must make “serious changes” to fulfil its duty and “provide objective, unbiased, timely intelligence”.
