Press Releases

Washington, DC — Today, Ranking Member Jim Himes led all Democratic Members of the House Intelligence Committee in a letter to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard regarding her decision to revoke the security clearances of 37 individuals, including current intelligence community (IC) officers and congressional staff.

“If there is evidence of misconduct to warrant revoking the clearances of these 37 individuals, some of whom were senior IC officers at the time of your memo, it would indicate a systemic issue in the granting of security clearances,” the members wrote. “It is hard to imagine an issue more deserving of congressional oversight and corrective action. If, however, these revocations occurred outside of established process and don’t reflect fundamental risk, an immense amount of IC knowledge and capability has been lost.”

The letter continued: “Your move was therefore immensely consequential to the national security of the United States. Moreover, there is reporting (and widespread speculation) that many of these revocations were driven by politics. It is imperative that Congress be satisfied that you are not politicizing the work of the intelligence community or using the security clearance process for political ends. For an IC workforce already navigating reductions in staffing and the unexplained firing of its leaders, the chilling effect caused by potentially politically-driven action against employees is impossible to overstate.”

The Committee requested written responses to seven oversight questions by September 19^th.

In addition to Ranking Member Himes, the letter was signed by Representatives André Carson (IN-07), Joaquin Castro (TX-20), Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL-08), Jason Crow (CO-06), Ami Bera (CA-06), Stacey Plaskett (VI-AL), Josh Gottheimer (NJ-05), Jimmy Gomez (CA-34), Chrissy Houlahan (PA-06), Mike Quigley (IL-05), and Steve Cohen (TN-09).

The full text of the letter is available here.