WashingtonIt wasn’t an isolated incident when the Trump administration announced this week that it would revoke the security clearances of 37 national security officials, both past and present.
President Donald Trump was using a preferred retaliatory strategy that he has used, or at least attempted to use, against prominent politicians, attorneys, and intelligence personnel when he ordered the clearances to be revoked.
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Officials who have worked for the government in a variety of capacities and agencies, including as at the CIA and National Security Agency and on former President Joe Biden’s national security team, are among the most recent targets.
The exact process by which the 37 individuals were chosen is unclear, but some of them have previously worked on matters pertaining to Russian election risks in 2016 and 2020—a topic that has long infuriated Trump.
They were among the national security experts who signed a letter in 2019 criticizing Trump, which was recently made public online by prominent Trump supporter Laura Loomer. Joel Willett, a former CIA officer and military veteran who served in the White House Situation Room under President Barack Obama before quitting the service ten years ago, was one of them. He claimed that although he was not provided an explanation for his targeting, he did not believe it was related to his lengthy history of government service.
He described his feelings upon hearing the news, saying, “I think there was a profound sadness and disappointment that this is what our country has become in 2025.”
Since it is unknown how many of the individuals just singled out by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard still hold security clearances, the practical impact is uncertain. Critics, however, are condemning the action as a form of retaliation intended to silence dissent and force the intelligence agency to reconsider its conclusions before they conflict with the president’s wishes.
Here are a few more individuals and sectors impacted by Trump’s security clearance actions:
The letter’s signers on Hunter Biden’s laptop
The clearances of almost forty former intelligence officials who had signed a letter in 2020 claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop bore the characteristics of a Russian information operation were revoked by Trump on his first day in office.
Prominent figures on the list include John Brennan and Leon Panetta, who were both Obama’s CIA directors, and James Clapper, who was Obama’s director of national intelligence. John Bolton, who was sacked as Trump’s national security adviser during his first term and went on to write a book that the White House attempted in vain to prevent from being published because it revealed classified material, was also singled out.
The laptop plot began in 2020 when The New York Post said that it had acquired a computer’s hard drive from longtime Trump supporter Rudy Giuliani, which Biden had left in a repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware. Communications about the younger Biden’s business activities in Ukraine were reported in the press.
Concerns regarding the origin of emails revealed by the Post were addressed in a follow-up letter from 51 former intelligence officials. The signatories stated that they were unsure of the emails’ authenticity but that they had all the telltale signs of a Russian information campaign.
John Ratcliffe, the current director of CIA and Trump’s former national intelligence director, disputed that conclusion, claiming there was no evidence linking Russia to Hunter Biden’s laptop.
In a letter to Congress, the FBI, which was looking into the younger Biden’s criminal activities, appeared to support Ratcliffe’s claim that it had nothing more to add to what he had revealed.
Hunter Biden was later found guilty of tax and firearms offenses, but his father granted him a pardon.
Joe Biden, the former president, and his top officials
Biden’s clearance was revoked by Trump in a separate order, stating that he was no longer required to have access to classified material. In retaliation for Biden doing the same to him in 2021, he also stopped providing him with intelligence briefings.
A March order froze the security clearances of top Biden administration officials, including former Secretary of State Antony Blinken and former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Other opponents of Trump
The same March order also targeted a number of Trump’s alleged enemies, such as:
Top prosecutor Andrew Weissmann was part of the Justice Department special counsel team that looked into connections between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia during his first term in office.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, led by Alvin Bragg, brought charges against Trump last year for allegedly paying hush money to an adult film actress who claimed to have had sex with him in 2016.
An intelligence agency whistleblower who filed the first of two impeachment charges against Trump was among the clients of renowned Washington national security attorney Mark Zaid.
Zaid later filed a lawsuit, claiming that it was an unlawful act of political retaliation that threatened his future ability to represent clients in instances involving critical national security.
Legal firms
In a series of executive orders this year that targeted well-known law firms for legal work he disapproved of or for their connections with lawyers he did not like, Trump also made the suspension of clearances a crucial clause.
In addition, the actions threatened to revoke federal contracts and attempted to prevent firm lawyers from entering federal offices.
In order to prevent the orders from being enforced, four firms—Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, Susman Godfrey, and Jenner & Block—filed lawsuits in federal court. In each instance, they were successful in having the orders overturned, preserving the clearances.