| Submit your comments on this article |
| -Great Cultural Revolution |
| UN Ambassador's Acting Chief of Staff Has Her Security Clearance Revoked |
| 2021-04-12 |
| [Red State] In a little-noticed story that broke on Friday night, it was reported that Jennifer Davis, Chief of Staff to UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield (pictured above), has been reassigned because her security clearance was revoked. According to the Politico article, Davis is a career foreign service officer, having worked for 18 years in the State Department with previous assignments in Mexico, Turkey, and Colombia. The decision to revoke Davis’s clearance came after a three-year administrative investigation conducted by the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, which conducts security background investigations to assess whether an individual should have access to classified information. According to Politico, the issue involves an interview Davis gave to a reporter, Amberin Zaman of the Middle Eastern-focused news outlet Al-Monitor. At the time Davis was serving as General Counsel in the US Embassy in Istanbul, and one subject in the interview involved questions about US officials in Turkey being "hassled and detained" by Turkish government authorities. In his article, Zaman called it a pressure campaign that would likely cause the United States to prevent Turkish government officials from visiting the U.S. in the future. Zaman reported that a list of officials likely to be affected had already been drafted, and in doing so he cited "sources close to the Donald Trump administration." Davis has apparently acknowledged that the reference is to her, as she has claimed through a third party speaking on her behalf that the information given to Zaman was not at all sensitive at the time, and was declassified soon after her discussion with the reporter. Unfortunately, that acknowledgment contains two subjective judgments that were not hers to make — as to the level of "sensitivity" about the information given to a reporter, and that there was no harm in sharing it because it was thereafter declassified. It was either "sensitive" or "not sensitive," and that was not a judgment for her to make. And by her own admission, it was classified at the time she disclosed it to the reporter. The fact that it was later declassified is irrelevant. The only relevant consideration is that she cannot be trusted with knowledge of classified information because she has demonstrated a willingness to substitute her judgment on disclosure for the judgment of the classifying authority which classified the information to begin with. That is a red-line over which persons with security clearances are to not cross. Davis had been serving in the position informally as Acting Chief of Staff, but Politico’s story says she has been doing so without a security clearance which had been revoked at some point earlier. Without the clearance, Davis has not been able to work in the Ambassador’s Office and has been working from her home instead. The existence of the security investigation against her had prevented her from formally being hired into the position until the matter was resolved and her security clearance restored. But it appears now that the revocation is final — subject to her right to appeal — and that finality led her to stop working for the Ambassador even in a limited role early last week. |
| Posted by:Frank G |
| #3 Three year investigation, three years, during which she continued to operate and have access? Something smells to high heaven here, and she will play the usual race card immediately. Who wants to bet she keeps her six figure pension when she punches out, and may be even a settlement for the racism pityplea? |
| Posted by: NoMoreBS 2021-04-12 20:13 |
| #2 She's toast, but I suspect there is much more to this story. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2021-04-12 19:11 |
| #1 What? The IC is actually concerned about security? |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2021-04-12 13:37 |