The former White House official at the center of a political fight over Trump administration security clearances has blasted the press for damaging his reputation.
Carl Kline, who was White House personnel security director for the first two years of President Trump’s term, made the comments this week during a seven-hour, closed-door session with the House Oversight Committee, according to a memo drafted by Republicans on the panel that was obtained by the Washington Examiner.
“Mr. Kline testified in no uncertain terms that he was never instructed by anyone to change a security clearance determination and that no one ever attempted to influence him in decisions he made in evaluating security clearance applications,” the memo summarizing the 43-year-old’s transcribed interview said. “Mr. Kline testified that despite his character being ‘assassinated’ in the press and having no ‘ability’ to defend himself to the public, he would not change the decisions he made and would make those same decisions again.”
Kline’s testimony, given to the committee on May 1, is unlikely to end the escalating tensions between House Oversight’s majority and minority staffs and the White House, which this week included Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., threatening to fine or jail Kline if he failed to comply with a subpoena and appear before Congress.
[Opinion: Security clearances should not be a partisan issue]
The memo ripped Cummings’ leadership of the security clearance investigation, which started in January. The probe was triggered by news reports that Trump ordered former White House chief of staff John Kelly to issue senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner’s clearance after Kline’s team declined to give him one. Concerns have also been raised about how Ivanka Trump, a fellow White House adviser who is married to Kushner, received a clearance. The inquiry was additionally spurred by a whistleblower, Tricia Newbold, who accused Kline in April of mismanaging 25 applications that were originally denied before later being approved. Kline said all decisions were made by career professionals and that the “troubling” leaks from his old office could pose a threat to national security, according to the memo.
“The interview revealed more about the Democrats’ goals and desires for the investigation than it did about Mr. Kline; it showed that the Democrats are truly interested in obtaining highly personal information about specific White House staff members,” it said. “The fact that Committee Democrats are willing to entertain the notion of using a partisan and political investigation to jail a lifelong military veteran and civil servant raises grave concerns about abuse of power.”
A representative for Cummings did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner‘s requests for comment on Kline’s interview or the committee’s response to his answers.
The memo comes after a Politico news story reporting that Kline admitted to lawmakers he did grant clearances against the advice of lower-level staff and that he sometimes acted as a second layer of review on a file.
Kline now works for the Department of Defense.
