CLEAR ME NOT!!!!!

On security clearances, and the truth about them.  This flap of John Brennan having his clearance revoked has put the issue in the forefront for the left; anything but the right thing……that should be a leftist mantra.

Let me say up front; like most people I think we (in the military and the government) “overclassify” data, documents, intellectual property and “things”, and the rules governing classifications are Byzantine and easy to trip over.  But dealing with classified material is not rocket science, which is how I have had a secret security clearance since 1882.

The most common clearances people know of are “confidential”, secret (and within secret, several areas such as RELNATO-releasable to NATO partners- Secret FVEYS- Secret, releasable to our UK, Austrailian, German, Canadian and New Zealand allies- and Secret NOFORN-Secret, No Foreign distribution), and Top Secret.  Next up is Top Secret/Special compartmentalized information-TS/SCI.  There are higher security clearances but chances are, if you are reading this article, you don’t have or need one.

As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton held a TS/SCI and possibly higher clearance (actually probably higher).  Hillary is documented as having violated US law governing handling of information from Secret to TS/SCI over 100 times…..provable, documented, over 100 times, many of which attested too by Comey himself when the exonerated her.  She is on the record as lying about it, in the face of the facts, countless times.  During the Obama administration, about a dozen employees or military people were tried, found guilty, imprisoned and fined for far fewer and far less important violations.  In the Clinton administration about an equal number were tried but less served time and several were pardoned.  Bill Clinton himself, lying to the grand jury about his oval office romps with Monica Lewinsky, violated the law and the subsequent investigation found him to be a risk to security in that he could be black mailed by Lewinsky.  Despite her protestations of innocence, and regardless of Comeys twisting of the law, Hillary Clinton is documented on breaking the law.  I know through my time in the service that the military is meticulous, harsh and completely unforgiving on security violations.  Federal law enforcement is as well, when it comes to spies and, seemingly, anyone other than a democrat.  To date nothing as been done to Hillary Clinton.

In the last three years I know of four people in my organization that were fired, not investigated, but fired, for violating US laws concerning security violations at the secret level.  And one incident had me confused until it was briefed to us at large.  Three employees took a selfie and on the wall behind them was map with operational graphics.  The detail of the map was not fine enough to see, but the big stamp at the top of the map that read “SECRET” was clear for all to see…..indicating that they had a cell phone in a closed storage, classified area, where they could talk, record, text or…..take pictures.   They will never, ever hold a position requiring a secret or higher level clearance. 

Hillary, as we know, ran for President.

Additionally, clearances, especially TS and TS/SCI or higher, are held on an as needed basis.  If you move to a job where you don’t need the clearance, you have a realistic expectation that it will be revoked without prejudice, purely an administrative detail.  If your job does not require the clearance, but it is reasonable to expect that you will be involved, even tangentially, with others that are in need of a clearance for their work, you can reasonably expect to maintain your clearance.  I did not need a secret clearance when I worked at the local high school (I needed a helluva lot of patience, but that is another issue), but I was such low hanging fruit that I maintained the clearance through that dark period of life.

IF you decide to trade upon your loathing of the President and the nation, for partisan purposes and whore yourself out to the nations largest televised propaganda producing bullshit machine, where you proceed to talk smack against every single person who disagrees with your narrow view of right and wrong…..then not only do you not need the clearance, you should not HAVE the clearance.

Is John Brennan a risk to this nation?  I think that his open willingness to excoriate his self proclaimed enemies, and vitriol on TV,  is answer enough….there is no accusation that the man will not make, and it is a fact that he was the prime mover, the main actor in getting the fake “Trump Dossier” before the FISA court.  The man is a loathsome character who would have never been CIA director under any President but Obama.  

We should not be at all concerned that the President revoked Brennans’ clearance……we should be very concerned that he ever had one in the first place.