Day after day, Republicans continually abandon their former stance as the party of “law and order.” From sitting back while Donald Trump attacks our law enforcement, Department of Justice, and national intelligence officials to ignoring the ever-creeping corruption in their own party and eschewing any ethical oversights on themselves or the White House, Republicans are a far, far cry from embracing our laws or the collective order.
Yet another barrier has increasingly crumbled under Republicans, that of safeguarding national intelligence officials. Putting aside Donald Trump’s public attacks on FBI agents, CIA officials, and others in the intelligence community who have unanimously assessed Russia interfered in the 2016 election, Republicans have outed the private information of another intelligence official: former CIA operative Abigail Spanberger, who is running as a Democrat for Congress in Virginia’s 7th District, which shares a boundary line with the district that houses the CIA headquarters and is home to many intelligence officials and their families.
Spanberger’s complete security clearance forms, known as SF-86 forms, were turned over to Republican operatives at the America Rising Corporation, a Republican super PAC, through a FOIA request. Spanberger herself requested the information back in December 2017 and has yet to receive it, but the Republican PAC request was apparently expedited and perhaps illegally turned over in full. Now more than 200 national intelligence veterans want to know exactly how this happened. They’ve written an open letter to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, demanding an investigation. The complete letter is worth a read.
Via Politico:
Dr. Jeff T.H. Pon
Director, Office of Personnel Management
Director Daniel Coats
Director of National Intelligence
Dear Director Pon and Director Coats,
As former national security professionals, we have all served our country—some of us in uniform, others as intelligence, diplomatic, law enforcement, or national security professionals.We did so not for the prestige, and not for the paycheck, but because we wanted to give back: representing, advocating for, and protecting the United States at home and around the world.We asked for very little in return, assuming only that the country we served would always have our backs.
As such, it was with surprise, anger, and profound disappointment that we recently learned that our government—whether intentionally or not—violated the trust of one among our ranks.The New York Times reported this month that the Executive Branch released in full the confidential national security questionnaire, or SF-86, of Abigail Spanberger, who served as a CIA case officer until 2014. The SF-86 is one of the most confidential and sensitive documents the U.S. government requires its national security officials to file. Neither we, nor national security law experts we have consulted, are familiar with any previous case of an SF-86 being released in full, to include Social Security Number and medical history, pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request, as was reportedly done in this case.
We have yet to hear an adequate explanation as to why Ms. Spanberger’s sensitive personal information was released and subsequently made public by House Speaker Paul Ryan’sPolitical Action Committee, the Congressional Leadership Fund. It is possible this situation maybe the result of a single person’s error. Nevertheless, we note how peculiar it would be for the first victim of such an error to be Ms. Spanberger, who is the Democratic nominee in a competitive U.S. House of Representatives race in Virginia. To be clear, Ms. Spanberger’s current political ambitions should have absolutely nothing to do with the obligation of the Executive Branch to safeguard her personal and confidential information. Absent answers, however, we cannot dismiss the deeply troubling possibility that this was an act of political retribution by this administration in violation of U.S. law.
Ultimately, this is about more than Ms. Spanberger’s case or our own concern for the security of our personal information. Each year, thousands of aspiring public servants file this same document, hoping to serve their country, just as we did. They must be confident that their information will be handled securely and never released pursuant to a political agenda. They, we, and Ms. Spanberger deserve answers.
Indeed, the American people and these national security veterans do deserve answers. We may only get them if Democrats take the House in November.
