The White House has silently ordered the FBI to stop the background verification process for dozens of President Donald Trump’s leading employees, and has transferred the process to the Pentagon, sources familiar with the matter to ABC News said.
The directive occurred last month after the agents commissioned to complete the background investigations had conducted interviews with a handful of the best assistants of the White House, a standard part of the background verification process.
White House officials took the unusual step to order a stop to the background verification investigations after they considered too intrusive, the sources said.
The procedure generally implies extensive interviews, as well as a review of financial records, foreign contacts, past employment and any risk of potential security.
On the other hand, the White House decided to transfer the background verification process for the White House personnel to the Department of Defense to complete the checks, the sources said.
A former FBI official told ABC News that the approach was “very unusual.”
“If any of this is true, and if you apply it to what has historically been in the FBI mandate, then it would be to break that historical precedent, long data and very unusual,” said a former FBI official to ABC News. “It would be very unusual if that was removed from the FBI now, for any reason, and delivered to the DOD or other agency.”
The Logo of the Department of Defense is seen in the wall in the press room of the press in the Pentagon, on October 29, 2024, in Washington.
Kevin Wolf/AP
The newly installed FBI director, Kash Patel, told ABC News in a statement: “The FBI is relentlessly focused on our mission of rebuilding trust, restoring law and order and letting good agents be good agents, and we have full confidence that the DOD can address any need in the authorization process.”
Pentagon representatives sent questions about the matter to the White House.
The background verification process stopped only a few days before the Senate confirmed Patel on February 20, the sources said. The FBI is still carrying out background investigations for positions that require confirmation of the Senate, the sources said.
The counterintelligence and security agency of the Pentagon Defense (DCSA) carries out most background investigations for the Federal Government. The FBI conducts investigations for the appointed presidential ones that require confirmation of the Senate, as well as some other presidential appointed, including White House staff.
Historically, administrations have been based on the FBI background verification process to ensure that the personnel they are hiring comply with strict ethical standards and do not risk compromising national security.
“Background investigations for national security posts are carried out to collect information to determine if it is reliable, reliable, of good behavior and character, and loyal to the United States,” says form SF-86 completed by federal employees seeking security authorizations and used for background research.
However, Trump and many of his allies entered the White House with a bitter distrust of the office, so they argued that it was his “weapon” through the prosecutions presented against him by former special lawyer Jack Smith. His best appointed politicians in the initial month of the administration moved quickly to purge the high -level ranks of the FBI and the justice department of any person linked to Smith’s prosecutions and those who believed they would not be politically loyal to Trump.
Among Trump’s first presidential actions was to issue a memorandum that grants the highest level of security authorization to senior White House officials who had not been completely examined through the background verification process.
That list of officials, although it was not publicly revealed, included dozens of high -level White House employees, according to sources familiar with the matter.
In that memorandum, Trump said there was a “request for orders” in the security authorization process, a problem that blamed the administration of President Joe Biden.
However, Trump’s transition team had refused for months to reach an agreement with the Bajo Biden Justice Department to begin the background verification process for people who would customize the incoming administration of Trump, which has contributed in part to the personnel problems they now face.
