WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is taking further action against the 50 former intelligence officials who falsely suggested Hunter Biden’s laptop was “part of a Russian disinformation campaign,” instructing agencies to also ban those individuals from stepping foot in secure U.S. government facilities, according to a memo obtained by The Daily Wire.
The Jan. 29 cabinet memorandum, first obtained by The Daily Wire, expands Trump’s
day-one executive order, which revoked the security clearance for the 50 individuals. Sent “on behalf of the President,” it orders the country’s top national security agencies to “revoke unescorted access to secure U.S. Government facilities from the 50 former intelligence officials named in the Executive Order.”
“These individuals no longer possess a need to access secure facilities, and as outlined in the Executive Order, do not have the appropriate security clearances to access classified information,” the memo states.
Included in the list of individuals are prominent members of the intelligence community, including former CIA directors John Brennan, Michael Hayden, and Leon Panetta, who also at one time served as Secretary of Defense. It also includes the former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and John Bolton, the longtime diplomat who most recently served under Trump as his national security advisor.
The memo was sent to the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Director of National Intelligence, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. It was also distributed to the Director of the Office of Personnel Management, who is tasked with informing any other “clearance-granting U.S. Government entity” of the ban “to ensure compliance.”
The action comes as part of the Trump administration’s effort to weed out government officials who participated in political weaponization of their power. His initial executive order charged that “the signatories willfully weaponized the gravitas of the Intelligence Community to manipulate the political process and undermine our democratic institutions.”
Trump on Friday ordered several FBI officials who served in the prior administration to resign, telling them they will be fired if they choose not to. Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, faced a contentious confirmation hearing on Thursday, and pledged to “de-weaponize” the intelligence community.
“America deserves a better brand of justice and I’m going to give it to them,” Patel said in the hearing.
The
initial letter from the intelligence officials came in October 2020, weeks before the presidential election, after the
New York Post reported on emails on Hunter Biden’s laptop. The story stated that the laptop was left by the former president’s drug-addicted son at a computer repair shop. The letter, however, said the story had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” and this claim was used as an excuse to censor the reporting ahead of the election. The laptop and the emails on it proved to be authentic.
Trump’s newly confirmed CIA Director, John Ratcliffe, was Director of National Intelligence at the time, and from the beginning
stated that there was no evidence of Russian involvement.
The full memo obtained by The Daily Wire can be
read here.
