Donald Trump’s debts and financial ties are a threat to national security
The former president’s web of financial entanglements is one reason he would never receive a security clearance if he had to apply for one.
Before federal employees gain access to national security secrets, they must first undergo an assessment to show that they are “reliable, trustworthy, of good conduct and character, and loyal to the United States.” This assessment, based on 13 criteria of reliability and trustworthiness, if passed, results in a security clearance — granted on a tiered basis based on the sensitivity of the position.
Heavy personal debts, unsavory associates, murky foreign financial ties — any of them could be a reason a security clearance is denied. The rules are premised on the common-sense idea that those individuals are more vulnerable to blackmail or bribery, or simply lack moral character.
The president, like all constitutional officeholders, is exempt from this requirement. The president’s security clearance, as it were, is granted by the electorate.
oters, though, have every reason to weigh in the voting booth the same kind of considerations that clearance-vetters in the government do when they’re assessing potential federal workers: Can this candidate be trusted in a sensitive national security job?
The answer in the case of former president Donald Trump is clearly no. If Trump were required to pass even the lowest level of federal security clearance, he couldn’t. And the reasons he would fail also make him a unique danger to national security if reelected. That conclusion doesn’t reflect a difference of opinion about foreign policy. Indeed, Republican and Democratic foreign policy hands who agree on little else have come together to warn against electing Trump because of the national security risk he poses.
From his heavy indebtedness, deep foreign financial ties, and his praise of dictatorial strongmen and criticism of American allies to his creation of a new, dangerous populism at home — including his open embrace of authoritarianism — Trump poses a perilous national and domestic security threat.
Why? Start by following the money.
When Trump announced his first presidential bid in the lobby of Trump Tower in Manhattan in 2015, he heaped some praise that previewed his future policy.
“I love the Saudis,” Trump said. “Many are in this building.”
Indeed, Trump’s prepresidential ties with Saudis ran as deep as the wealthy nation’s pockets. A cash-strapped Trump sold a $20 million yacht to Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin-Talal in 1991. The prince and other investors bailed out Trump’s money-losing Plaza Hotel for $325 million in 1995. And in 2001 the entire 45th floor of the Trump World Tower was sold to the Saudi government for $12 million.
Political and business leaders from Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries would rent space in Trump-owned buildings during his time in the White House — patronization that would amount to at least $9 million in Trump’s pockets while he was president, according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which scrutinized Trump’s tax records.
Fast forward to 2018 when Trump was president. US intelligence officials determined with high confidence that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was behind the capture and brutal murder of The Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Not only did Trump undermine the findings of his own intelligence community, he defended the prince and smeared Khashoggi’s memory.
On one level, that episode was just a vivid reminder of why Trump’s well-documented obsession with foreign strongman leaders is such a threat. From Vladimir Putin to Kim Jong Un, Trump seems attracted to dictators who kill dissidents and crush independent media. American national security, though, is built on the strength of multilateral, rules-based institutions, which are antithetical to might-makes-right strongmen Trump seems to prefer.
But the ugly Khashoggi story also serves as a textbook example of why indebtedness and financial ties are scrutinized by federal officials vetting security clearances for federal employees. Trump was a threat when he took office in 2017. Since then, his liabilities, if he again holds the government’s top job, have only increased.
Earlier this year, Trump was hit with two massive civil judgements — now totaling more than half a billion dollars.
This new debt, from verdicts finding him liable for manipulating the value of his business and for defaming writer E. Jean Carroll, added to his existing and sizable financial liabilities. Those included a separate $5 million judgment in Carroll’s favor last year for sexual abuse and damage to her reputation.
Such indebtedness would surely gain attention in a federal security clearance probe: People facing financial difficulties are far more likely to be susceptible to the influence of those who hold leverage over them. And the fact that much of Trump’s debt is from unknown sources means that he is uniquely vulnerable to pressure from outside actors both foreign and domestic.
Indebtedness alone — particularly when related to a business whose fortunes can ebb and flow — is not necessarily enough to block someone from holding a sensitive government position. In Trump’s case, while national security experts sounded the alarm over the more than $421 million of debt that was set to come due in the four years after Trump left the White House, more than half has already been wiped from the books, due to the refinancing of existing mortgages, off-loading his money-losing Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C., and other moves.
Debt, on its own, wouldn’t be fatal to having access to sensitive documents, were Trump an ordinary federal employee — though it would still raise questions.
But debt incurred from legal judgments is a different matter when it comes to security.
“The business fraud case, particularly, speaks to a larger issue of his judgment, his credibility, and his trustworthiness,” Bradley Moss, a national security attorney, told the editorial board. “That would set off massive red flags.”
The civil judgments are not the only legal troubles that make Trump a security risk — his criminal conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records would probably torpedo any bid for security clearance.
And there’s more: take Trump’s foreign financial entanglements. The risks of deep indebtedness to foreign entities caused national security experts to raise eyebrows of Trump’s appointments of his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner as senior advisers in the White House. The two ran into trouble obtaining clearance, but Trump intervened on their behalf, according to The New York Times.
That move, too, would have apparent security consequences. Kushner’s private investment firm’s $2 billion deal inked with the Saudi government in the six months after he left the White House was deemed an ethics breach even by House Oversight Committee Chairman and Trump ally James Comer.
Trump again being in a position of power to circumvent the security vetting would only compound the threat he poses.
But Trump’s dangerous grifts and messy financial entanglements overseas are only part of the security threat he poses to our nation.
Tomorrow: A record of inciting violence should disqualify Trump from the presidency.