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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Kelly knew before abuse reports that Porter would be denied security clearance.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/08/john-kelly-rob-porter-security-clearance-400987
[quote]Kelly knew before abuse reports that Porter would be denied security clearance

The former White House staff secretary, who left the Trump administration on Thursday, was among multiple West Wing aides who had been working with only an interim security clearance.

[b]White House chief of staff John Kelly was told several weeks ago that the FBI would deny full security clearances to multiple White House aides who had been working in the West Wing on interim security clearances.[/b]

Those aides, according to a senior administration official, included former White House staff secretary Rob Porter, who left the White House on Thursday after reports that he physically and verbally abused his two ex-wives.

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The White House chief-of-staff told confidants in recent weeks that he had decided to fire anyone who had been denied a clearance — but had yet to act on that plan before the Porter allegations were first reported this week.

Trump jokingly told economic adviser Gary Cohn several months ago that while he initially thought Porter was “just some guy who handed me papers,” he had since realized that Porter was “the smartest guy in the White House.”

Porter, Trump told Cohn, had not one but two degrees from Harvard — one from the undergraduate college and one from the law school — and he was a Rhodes Scholar. “Even Gorsuch wasn’t a Rhodes Scholar,” Trump said, referring to Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, who spent two years at Oxford on a Marshall Scholarship.

“Maybe he’ll be my next Supreme Court pick,” Trump said.

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So [b]who are the other people who aren’t going to get their security clearances and why are they still working with classified information weeks after Kelly found out?[/b]

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They may be people like Rob Porter, who have background "issues", which make issuing them a security clearance very difficult, if not impossible.  These are quite [i]strategic options[/i] to have as staffers in a White House which is being investigated.  The fact that the White House is aware of their "issues", and is still willing to employ and protect them, makes these kind of no-clearance staffers particularly loyal to the White House.  And if their background  "issues" should be discovered, as Porter's were, then everyone except the White House will professionally [i]eschew[/i] them for those "issues".  The President will still support their professional futures, as he did for Porter today, and thus the resigning no-clearance staffers with background "issues" will remain particularly loyal allies to an administration under investigation.      [/quote]

You're thinking strategically.  I think it's more likely that they just can't get anyone better.[/quote]

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