US President Donald Trump has said he is revoking Joe Biden’s security clearance and access to daily intelligence briefings, after his predecessor did the same to him four years ago.
“There is no need for Joe Biden to continue receiving access to classified information,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform.
“JOE, YOU’RE FIRED,” the Republican added in a reference to his catchphrase on the reality TV show, The Apprentice.
Trump has already revoked the security clearance of more than four dozen former intelligence officials whom he accused of meddling in the 2020 election in Biden’s favour.
Trump posted on Friday evening that Biden “set this precedent in 2021, when he instructed the Intelligence Community (IC) to stop the 45th President of the United States (ME!) from accessing details on National Security, a courtesy provided to former Presidents”.
He said Biden “could not be trusted with sensitive information”, citing a justice department inquiry into the Democrat’s storage of classified files, which concluded that while there was no need to press criminal charges, Biden had a poor memory.
The investigation said Biden was unable to recall significant life events such as the year his son, Beau, died and when he served as vice-president to Barack Obama. Biden rejected that characterisation at the time.
The former president, who has taken some time away from the limelight since leaving his post last month, did not immediately respond to Trump’s move on Friday.
The BBC contacted Biden’s talent agency, which recently signed him, but no response was immediately forthcoming.
In 2021, Biden stopped Trump from receiving classified intelligence briefings, the first time an ex-president had ever been denied such information, which is traditionally given as a courtesy.
He justified the move by saying Trump could not be trusted because of his “erratic behaviour”, even before the 2021 US Capitol riot, which Democrats accused Trump of inciting in the last days of his first term.
“What value is giving him an intelligence briefing?” Biden said at the time. “What impact does he have at all, other than the fact he might slip and say something?”
In 2022, federal agents discovered classified files in Trump’s Florida home and he was charged with wilfully retaining defence information. He pleaded not guilty, and the case was ultimately dropped once he was re-elected.
Since returning to office, Trump has taken steps to revoke the security clearances and protections of other top officials linked to the Biden administration.
Among those whose security clearance and detail has been retracted is former top US military commander Mark Milley, a vocal critic of Trump.
The new Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, has also ordered Milley’s “conduct” to be investigated, and his military grade to be reviewed.
Trump has also revoked the security detail of former chief medical adviser to the president, Anthony Fauci, who led the US response to Covid-19.
Trump said at the time the decision was “very standard” and that it was not possible for everyone to have security protection for the rest of their life because they worked for the government.
He ended security protection for his own former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Secret Service protection for his former National Security Adviser, John Bolton, last month.
The president has also ordered that the security clearance of dozens of former intelligence officials, including two ex-CIA directors, be revoked.
They signed a letter in 2020 suggesting that reports about a laptop owned by Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, were a Russian hoax.
But the computer, whose trove of data contained evidence of drug abuse, prostitution and foreign business deals, was real.
Source: BBC
