By Bradley P. Moss
Monday, July 23, 2018, 10:12 PM

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s announcement that President Trump is reviewing potential mechanisms by which to revoke the security clearances of several former senior government officials has—not surprisingly—set off a cascade of questions over if and how the president can accomplish this. The prospect became even more complicated when Sanders clarified that the president’s specific gripes with these particular former officials—former director of national intelligence James Clapper, former CIA director John Brennan, former FBI director James Comey, former CIA director Michael Hayden, former national security adviser Susan Rice and former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe—was not tied to instances of security violations or unauthorized dissemination of classified information by those individuals.

Instead, Sanders clarified, Trump is considering steps by which their clearances can be revoked because “they’ve politicized and, in some cases, monetized their public service and security clearances,” as well as “ma[de] baseless accusations of improper contact with Russia or being influenced by Russia against the President.” In 11 years of representing civilian employees, military personnel, political appointees and government contractors in security clearance proceedings, I can say with certainty that these types of “allegations” are nothing like anything I have ever seen in a memorandum outlining bases for denying or revoking a security clearance.

But might those nevertheless be valid bases upon which to revoke someone’s clearance? Can the president pull this off? As a colleague of mine who still works for the government would say, “it depends.”

The Security Clearance Process Itself

The entire process of granting, denying or revoking someone’s security clearance is derived from the president’s Article II authority as commander in chief. The president is the ultimate classifier of information and, at least in theory, the ultimate decider on who is granted access to classified information. The operative document on security clearance determinations, including appeal rights afforded to individuals whose security clearances are denied or revoked, is Executive Order 12968 (as amended). That order outlines the procedures by which the executive branch agencies identify who requires a security clearance, the standards for investigating an individual’s background and the mechanisms by which individuals can seek administrative relief if an adverse security determination is made.

There is a critical distinction that often is misunderstood—even by individuals who have worked ...

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