By now, most of you have seen that Judge Jeanine Pirro resorted to a tried-and-true Trumpkin gambit when responding to the fallout over Rob Porter—blame Obama. You would think that a former prosecutor and judge would know that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Well, later on last night’s edition of “Justice with Judge Jeanine,” Pirro tried to offer that extraordinary evidence. Unfortunately, for that she turned to Sebastian Gorka.
Gorka claimed that he knows of a number of White House staffers whose security clearances got “slow-rolled” by those investigating them. In some cases, the slow-rolling happens while “a deliberate minefield” is put in place that is timed to explode at a certain time.
That led Pirro to wonder—how could an investigation take a year when it should be “easy stuff”? For Gorka, the answer was easy—“the swamp has many ways to undermine an administration.”
Let’s assume that Judge Jeanine and the good doctor are telling the truth. But how do you explain Porter holding a job that, according to former Clinton National Security Council staffer William Antholis, normally requires the highest level of security clearance?
If an employee receives an interim security clearance, he or she is allowed by law to serve in positions designated “National Security/Non-Critical Sensitive” or “National Security/Critical Sensitive.” They cannot, however, be given a “Special Sensitive” job, which requires a different level of clearance: Top Secret/Special Compartmentalized Information—also known as TS/SCI or TS/CodeWord.
Only employees with TS/SCI or CodeWord clearance can see our government’s most important secrets. Typically, the staff secretary is one of those very few people. One of the most important.
Antholis thinks it’s “staggering” that Kelly did not realize it would be highly problematic for Porter to serve as staff secretary on only an interim clearance. He thinks there are only three possibly explanations—either Kelly allowed Porter access to TS/CodeWord information without a clearance, waived the TS/CodeWord requirement, or simply found a way to work around Porter.
The last scenario is the only one that allows Kelly to look good. The second scenario would be a gross lapse in judgment, while the first is potentially criminal, according to Congressman Ted Lieu and Harvard Law’s Laurence Tribe.
In other words, there is no way you can credibly blame Obama or the “deep state” for this. Apparently Pirro and Gorka either don’t understand or don’t want to understand that unless Kelly has a really good explanation, there is no defensible reason for him to keep his job.