The Fbi Can Now Vet Trump’s White House Picks. But He Can Ignore Whatever The Bureau Digs Up.

After weeks of delay, Donald Trump has finally agreed to let the FBI vet his Cabinet nominees. But as president, Trump can give anyone a security clearance, regardless of what the FBI turns up.

And security clearance experts say he might have no choice but to do just that, given that many of his picks for Cabinet posts and other high-level jobs have what the FBI would consider red flags in their personal backgrounds or professional records.

Take Pete Hegseth, Trump’s Defense secretary pick, who has reportedly abused alcohol and paid a financial settlement to a woman who accused him of sexual assault.

Or Tulsi Gabbard, his pick for national intelligence director, who has voiced sympathetic views of autocrats like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and took a secret trip to visit Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.

Or Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s choice to lead HHS, who has embraced conspiracy theories, including that Covid-19 was “ethnically targeted” to avoid harming Chinese people and Ashkenazi Jews.

Kash Patel, his selection for FBI director, too, has promoted conspiracy theories, most prominently those espoused by QAnon.

Once Trump takes office, he can give all of them — and anyone else he wants — a security clearance on Day One of his administration.

In recent years, presidential candidates have signed agreements for transition support with the existing administration before the election. They also must sign an agreement with the Justice Department to allow the FBI to conduct background checks and process security clearances for nominees and other high-level officials.

The Trump transition team spent more than a month haggling over those agreements before ultimately deciding last week to sign the White House agreement giving them access to federal agencies and, on Tuesday, reaching an agreement with DOJ on background checks.

That lag stemmed from Trump’s suspicion of the FBI, according to a person familiar who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. That’s rooted in his belief, this person said, that the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 election grew out of the FBI’s background checks of nominees and high-level appointments at the start of Trump’s first term.

Despite the FBI’s expected involvement in vetting nominees for his second term, however, Trump is under no obligation to deny anyone a security clearance.

“There’s nothing to stop him from giving blanket security clearances with zero vetting,” said Bradley Moss, a lawyer who specializes in security clearance law.

“Everything we know about how vetting is done, how clearances are granted, it’s all based on policy memos and customs,” he said. “The current president is under zero obligation to adhere to any of it.”

Or as Kel McClanahan, executive director of National Security Counselors, a nonprofit law firm that specializes in national security law, put it: “If it involves a security clearance, the president can do whatever he wants.”

If Trump does intervene on clearances, it wouldn’t be the first time. During his first term, Trump reportedly ordered officials to give his son-in-law and top adviser Jared Kushner a top-secret security clearance over the objections of intelligence officials.

But in other cases, Trump didn’t appear to step in, even when top aides saw their access restricted. Rob Porter, who resigned after domestic-violence accusations by his two ex-wives, was never granted a full clearance and Johnny McEntee had his clearance revoked after an investigation into his finances.

At one point during the first Trump administration, chief of staff John Kelly ordered an overhaulof the process for granting security clearances because of “shortcomings” in the system. Kelly’s recommendations included working with the FBI to “reduce the time lag between discovery of significant derogatory information from fieldwork to the disclosure to the White House.”

A traditional FBI background check would almost certainly highlight significant concerns for many of Trump’s intended Cabinet nominees and high-level appointees, according to security clearance experts.

Sexual abuse allegations, substance abuse, significant debt or other financial problems, other types of addictions such as gambling, workplace misconduct and foreign contacts or foreign business are all considered worrisome to the FBI, often causing security clearances to be held up or denied.

Several of Trump’s picks have faced sexual assault or sexual misconduct allegations, including Hegseth, Kennedy and Matt Gaetz, who was Trump’s intended nominee for attorney general before he withdrew from consideration.

A police report made public in recent weeks revealed that a woman accused Hegseth of sexually assaulting her in 2017 and taking her phone, refusing to let her leave a California hotel room. Hegseth has told reporters he was “completely cleared.”

A report in The New Yorker also raised questions about Hegseth’s alcohol consumption, detailing numerous instances in which he allegedly appeared heavily intoxicated, including at work functions.

Kennedy has been accused by a former family babysitter of groping her in the late 1990s when she was 23 years old. She has said he texted her an apology after she went public with her allegations in recent months, adding that he had “no memory” of the incident.

Kennedy also has a history of substance abuse and went to rehab after pleading guilty to a felony charge for possessing heroin. But, Moss said, Kennedy’s handling of his addiction “absolutely matters.”

“You can have been a drug user, alcohol, etc, and still get cleared,” Moss said. “What matters is, were you diagnosed, was treatment recommended, did you comply with that treatment? And there’s been no recurrence.”

Gaetz was investigated by federal prosecutors for allegedly paying for sex with underage girls, accusations he has denied. He was never charged.

Gabbard, meanwhile, poses a whole other set of issues. In 2017, while she was in Congress, she shocked congressional leaders by taking a surprise trip to Syria and Lebanon without advance notice to Democrat or Republican leadership offices. She also wouldn’t say who was funding the trip, though a spokesperson said it was approved by the House Ethics Committee.

Gabbard’s foreign policy positions have drawn criticism from both parties, with former Republican presidential candidate and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley calling her “a Russian, Iranian, Syrian, Chinese sympathizer.”

Gabbard’s foreign trips and contacts “are going to be issues and she’s going to have to mitigate them,” said Greg Rinckey, a lawyer who specializes in security clearance representation.

Rinckey said Gabbard would likely be asked, “Who did you go there to meet with, what was the purpose, do you have any foreign contacts now? When was the last time your contacts were?” He said the FBI would also question her about any foreign holdings or bank accounts, as well as whether she has any ongoing contacts with high-ranking Syrian or Chinese officials. “How often is she communicating with foreign nationals? How is she communicating and what is she communicating about?”

McClanahan said Trump’s choice to replace Gaetz as attorney general nominee, Pam Bondi, would also likely face obstacles to a security clearance. McClanahan pointed to accusations that she accepted a $25,000 donation from Trump’s foundation to her political election committee in 2013 before her office opted not to pursue a fraud investigation into Trump University.

Bondi has said she was unaware of Trump University complaints at the time and that the contribution was unrelated to her office’s decision not to pursue the case.

But McClanahan said the fact that she is “credibility alleged to have taken a bribe to not investigate a company — that is enough to sink any normal human being.”

Kennedy, Patel and Mehmet Oz, Trump’s pick to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, have all embraced fringe theories, an issue that commonly leads the FBI to question the wisdom of entrusting people with classified information.

And perhaps none of Trump’s choices has alarmed security clearance experts more than Seb Gorka, whom Trump picked to be deputy assistant to the president and serve as senior director for counterterrorism, a role housed within the White House National Security Council.

During the first Trump administration, Gorka faced persistent questions about the status of his security clearance, in part because of a January 2016 charge for carrying a weapon at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

A judge later dismissed the misdemeanor charge after Gorka entered an Alford plea, in which the defendant concedes enough evidence to convict but does not admit guilt.

Gorka, who lived in Hungary for many years, also was wanted by Hungarian police for an arrest warrant for unspecified weapons or ammunitions charges.

Gorka’s run-in with law enforcement and foreign ties would almost certainly trigger a hold-up, if not denial, of his security clearance under usual circumstances, experts said. But, as Moss put it, “this is all academic, because if he wants to do so, Donald Trump can just circumvent this whole process and just grant him one.”